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Title: The Tatler, Volume 4

Author: Sir Richard Steele
Joseph Addison

Editor: George Atherton Aitken

Release date: May 21, 2015 [eBook #49009]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TATLER,
VOLUME 4 ***

The Tatler
Edited by
George A. Aitken

In Four Volumes
Volume Four

B. Lens Senr delineavit
Isaac Bickerstaff Esq.
Engraved by Wm. H. Ward & Co. L'd. from the
Original by Sturt after Lens.

The Tatler
Edited with Introduction & Notes

by

George A. Aitken
Author of

"The Life of Richard Steele," &c.

DESORMAIS

VOL. IV

New York
Hadley & Mathews
156 Fifth Avenue
London: Duckworth & Co.
1899

Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co.
At the Ballantyne Press

To the Right Honourable
Charles Lord Halifax.[1]
From the Hovel at Hamptonwick,
April 7, 1711.
My Lord,
hen I first resolved upon doing myself this honour, I could not but
W indulge a certain vanity in dating from this little covert, where I have
frequently had the honour of your Lordship's company, and received
from you very many obligations. The elegant solitude of this place, and the
greatest pleasures of it, I owe to its being so near those beautiful manors
wherein you sometimes reside: it is not retiring from the world, but
enjoying its most valuable blessings, when a man is permitted to share in
your Lordship's conversations in the country. All the bright images which
the wits of past ages have left behind them in their writings, the noble plans
which the greatest statesmen have laid down for administration of affairs,
are equally the familiar objects of your knowledge. But what is peculiar to
your Lordship above all the illustrious personages that have appeared in any
age, is, that wit and learning have from your example fallen into a new era.
Your patronage has produced those arts, which before shunned the
commerce of the world, into the service of life; and it is to you we owe, that
the man of wit has turned himself to be a man of business. The false
delicacy of men of genius, and the objections which others were apt to
insinuate against their abilities for entering into affairs, have equally
vanished. And experience has shown, that men of letters are not only
qualified with a greater capacity, but also a greater integrity in the despatch
of business. Your own studies have been diverted from being the highest
ornament, to the highest use to mankind, and the capacities which would
have rendered you the greatest poet of your age, have to the advantage of
Great Britain been employed in pursuits which have made you the most
able and unbiassed patriot. A vigorous imagination, an extensive
apprehension, and a ready judgment have distinguished you in all the
illustrious parts of administration, in a reign attended with such difficulties,

that the same talents without the same quickness in the possession of them
would have been incapable of conquering. The natural success of such
abilities has advanced you to a seat in that illustrious House where you were
received by a crowd of your relations. Great as you are in your honours and
personal qualities, I know you will forgive a humble neighbour the vanity
of pretending to a place in your friendship, and subscribing himself,
My Lord,
Your Lordship's most obliged
and most devoted Servant,
Richard Steele.

FOOTNOTES:
[1] Charles Montague, grandson of the first Earl of Manchester, was born in
1661, at Horton, in Northamptonshire, and was educated at Westminster, and at
Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1687 he joined with Prior in writing the "County
and the City Mouse," a burlesque on Dryden's "Hind and Panther." Montague
was amongst those who signed the invitation sent to William of Orange. After
the Revolution, he was made a Lord of the Treasury (March 1692), Chancellor
of the Exchequer (1694), and First Lord of the Treasury in 1698. These last two
offices he held together until 1699. Among the important schemes which he
carried out were a re-coining of the money, the founding of the Bank of England
and the new East India Company, and the issue of Exchequer bills. In 1700 he
was made Auditor of the Exchequer, and was created Baron Halifax. A Tory
House of Commons twice attacked him, but without success. In 1706 he took a
leading part in the negotiations which led to the Union with Scotland. He voted
for the sentence upon Dr. Sacheverell in 1710, and in the subsequent peace
negotiations he opposed the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht. In October 1714 he
again became First Lord of the Treasury, and was created Viscount Sunbury and
Earl of Halifax; but he died in May 1715. He was the patron of numerous men of
letters, and was lauded by many as a second Mæcenas. Pope says he was "fed
with soft dedication all day long." In 1711 Steele and Addison dedicated the
second volume of the Spectator to Lord Halifax.

CONTENTS
To the Right Honourable Charles Lord Halifax.
The Tatler
No. 194. [Steele.
No. 195. [Steele.
No. 196. [Steele.
No. 197. [Steele.
No. 198. [Steele.
No. 199. [Steele.
No. 200. [Steele.
No. 201. [Steele.
No. 202. [Steele.
No. 203. [Steele.
No. 204. [Steele.
No. 205. [Fuller.
No. 206. [Steele.
No. 207. [Steele.
No. 208. [Steele.
No. 209. [Steele.
No. 210. [Steele.
No. 211. [Steele.
No. 212. [Steele.
No. 213. [Steele.
No. 214. [Steele.
No. 215. [Steele.
No. 216. [Addison.
No. 217. [Steele.
No. 218. [Addison.
No. 219. [? Steele.
No. 220. [Addison.
No. 221. [? Addison.
No. 222. [? Addison.
No. 223. [? Steele.

No. 224. [Addison.
No. 225. [Steele.
No. 226. [Addison.
No. 227. [Steele.
No. 228. [Steele.
No. 229. [Addison.
No. 230. [Steele and Swift.
No. 231. [Steele.
No. 232. [Steele.
No. 233. [Steele.
No. 234. [Steele.
No. 235. [Steele.
No. 236. [Steele.
No. 237. [? Steele.
No. 238. [Steele and Swift.
No. 239. [Addison.
No. 240. [Addison.
No. 241. [Steele.
No. 242. [Steele.
No. 243. [Addison.
No. 244. [Steele.
No. 245. [Steele.
No. 246. [Steele.
No. 247. [Steele.
No. 248. [Steele.
No. 249. [Addison.
No. 250. [Addison.
No. 251. [Steele.
No. 252. [Steele.
No. 253. [Addison and Steele.
No. 254. [Addison and Steele.
No. 255. [Addison.
No. 256. [Addison and Steele.
No. 257. [Addison and Steele.
No. 258. [Steele.
No. 259. [Addison and Steele.
No. 260. [Addison and Steele.

No. 261. [Steele.
No. 262. [Addison and Steele.
No. 263. [Steele.
No. 264. [Steele.
No. 265. [Addison and Steele.
No. 266. [Steele.
No. 267. [Addison.
No. 268. [Steele.
No. 269. [Steele.
No. 270. [Steele.
No. 271. [Steele.
Appendix
Corrigenda
Index
Transcriber's Notes

The Tatler
By ISAAC BICKERSTAFF, Esq.

No. 194. [Steele.[2]
From Tuesday, July 4, to Thursday, July 6, 1710.
Militat omnis amans.—Ovid, Amor. El. ix. 1.

From my own Apartment, July 5.

was this morning reading the tenth canto in the fourth book of Spenser,
I in which Sir Scudamore relates the progress of his courtship to Amoret
under a very beautiful allegory, which is one of the most natural and
unmixed of any in that most excellent author. I shall transprose it, to use Mr.
Bayes's term,[3] for the benefit of many English lovers who have by
frequent letters desired me to lay down some rules for the conduct of their
virtuous amours; and shall only premise, that by the shield of love is meant
a generous, constant passion for the person beloved.
When the fame, says he, of this celebrated beauty first flew abroad, I went
in pursuit of her to the Temple of Love. This temple, continues he, bore the
name of the goddess Venus, and was seated in a most fruitful island, walled
by nature against all invaders. There was a single bridge that led into the
island, and before it a castle garrisoned by twenty knights. Near the castle
was an open plain, and in the midst of it a pillar, on which was hung the
shield of love; and underneath it, in letters of gold, was this inscription:

Happy the man who well can use his bliss;
Whose ever be the shield, fair Amoret be his.

My heart panted upon reading the inscription: I struck upon the shield with
my spear. Immediately issued forth a knight well mounted, and completely
armed, who, without speaking, ran fiercely at me. I received him as well as
I could, and by good fortune threw him out of the saddle. I encountered the
whole twenty successively, and leaving them all extended on the plain,
carried off the shield in token of victory. Having thus vanquished my rivals,

I passed on without impediment, till I came to the outermost gate of the
bridge, which I found locked and barred. I knocked and called, but could
get no answer. At last I saw one on the other side of the gate, who stood
peeping through a small crevice. This was the porter; he had a double face
resembling a Janus, and was continually looking about him, as if he
mistrusted some sudden danger. His name, as I afterwards learned, was
Doubt. Over against him sat Delay, who entertained passengers with some
idle story, while they lost such opportunities as were never to be recovered.
As soon as the porter saw my shield, he opened the gate; but upon my
entering, Delay caught hold of me, and would fain have made me listen to
her fooleries. However, I shook her off, and passed forward till I came to
the second gate, the Gate of Good Desert, which always stood wide open;
but in the porch was a hideous giant, that stopped the entrance: his name
was Danger. Many warriors of good reputation, not able to bear the
sternness of his look, went back again. Cowards fled at the first sight of
him, except some few, who watching their opportunity, slipped by him
unobserved. I prepared to assault him; but upon the first sight of my shield,
he immediately gave way. Looking back upon him, I found his hinder parts
much more deformed and terrible than his face; Hatred, Murder, Treason,
Envy, and Detraction lying in ambush behind him, to fall upon the heedless
and unwary.
I now entered the Island of Love, which appeared in all the beauties of art
and nature, and feasted every sense with the most agreeable objects. Amidst
a pleasing variety of walks and alleys, shady seats and flowery banks,
sunny hills and gloomy valleys, were thousands of lovers sitting, or walking
together in pairs, and singing hymns to the deity of the place.
I could not forbear envying this happy people, who were already in
possession of all they could desire. While I went forward to the temple, the
structure was beautiful beyond imagination. The gate stood open. In the
entrance sat a most amiable woman, whose name was Concord.
On either side of her stood two young men, both strongly armed, as if afraid
of each other. As I afterwards learned, they were both her sons, but begotten
of her by two different fathers; their names, Love and Hatred.
The lady so well tempered and reconciled them both, that she forced them
to join hands; though I could not but observe, that Hatred turned aside his

face, as not able to endure the sight of his younger brother.
I at length entered the inmost temple, the roof of which was raised upon a
hundred marble pillars, decked with crowns, chains, and garlands. The
ground was strewn with flowers. A hundred altars, at each of which stood a
virgin priestess clothed in white, blazed all at once with the sacrifice of
lovers, who were perpetually sending up their vows to heaven in clouds of
incense.
In the midst stood the goddess herself, upon an altar, whose substance was
neither gold nor stone, but infinitely more precious than either. About her
neck flew numberless flocks of little Loves, Joys, and Graces; and all about
her altar lay scattered heaps of lovers, complaining of the disdain, pride, or
treachery of their mistresses. One among the rest, no longer able to contain
his grief, broke out into the following prayer: "Venus, queen of grace and
beauty, joy of gods and men, who with a smile becalmest the seas, and
renewest all nature; goddess, whom all the different species in the universe
obey with joy and pleasure, grant I may at last obtain the object of my
vows."
The impatient lover pronounced this with great vehemence; but I in a soft
murmur besought the goddess to lend me her assistance. While I was thus
praying, I chanced to cast my eye on a company of ladies, who were
assembled together in a corner of the temple waiting for the anthem.
The foremost seemed something elder and of a more composed
countenance than the rest, who all appeared to be under her direction. Her
name was Womanhood. On one side of her sat Shamefacedness, with
blushes rising in her cheeks, and her eyes fixed upon the ground: on the
other was Cheerfulness, with a smiling look, that infused a secret pleasure
into the hearts of all that saw her. With these sat Modesty, holding her hand
on her heart; Courtesy, with a graceful aspect, and obliging behaviour; and
the two sisters, who were always linked together, and resembled each other,
Silence and Obedience.

Thus sat they all around in seemly rate,
And in the midst of them a goodly maid
Even in the lap of Womanhood there sat,
The which was all in lily-white arrayed,
Where silver streams among the linen strayed;
Like to the morn, when first her shining face
Hath to the gloomy world itself bewrayed.
That same was fairest Amoret in place,
Shining with beauty's light, and heavenly virtue's grace.

As soon as I beheld the charming Amoret, my heart throbbed with hopes. I
stepped to her, and seized her hand; when Womanhood immediately rising
up, sharply rebuked me for offering in so rude a manner to lay hold on a
virgin. I excused myself as modestly as I could, and at the same time
displayed my shield; upon which, as soon as she beheld the god
emblazoned with his bow and shafts, she was struck mute, and instantly
retired.
I still held fast the fair Amoret, and turning my eyes towards the goddess of
the place, saw that she favoured my pretensions with a smile, which so
emboldened me, that I carried off my prize.
The maid, sometimes with tears, sometimes with smiles, entreated me to let
her go: but I led her through the temple-gate, where the goddess Concord,
who had favoured my entrance, befriended my retreat.

This allegory is so natural, that it explains itself. The persons in it are very
artfully described, and disposed in proper places. The posts assigned to
Doubt, Delay, and Danger, are admirable. The Gate of Good Desert has
something noble and instructive in it. But above all, I am most pleased with
the beautiful group of figures in the corner of the temple. Among these,
Womanhood is drawn like what the philosophers call a universal nature, and
is attended with beautiful representatives of all those virtues that are the

ornaments of the female sex, considered in its natural perfection and
innocence.

FOOTNOTES:
[2] This paper may be by John Hughes, who published an edition of Spenser in
1715.
[3] In the "Rehearsal," Act I.

No. 195. [Steele.
From Thursday, July 6, to Saturday, July 8, 1710.
Grecian Coffee-house, July 7.

he learned world are very much offended at many of my ratiocinations,
T and have but a very mean opinion of me as a politician. The reason of
this is, that some erroneously conceive a talent for politics to consist in
the regard to a man's own interest; but I am of quite another mind, and think
the first and essential quality towards being a statesman is to have a public
spirit. One of the gentlemen who are out of humour with me, imputes my
falling into a way wherein I am so very awkward to a barrenness of
invention, and has the charity to lay new matter before me for the future. He
is at the bottom my friend, but is at a loss to know whether I am a fool or a
physician, and is pleased to expostulate with me with relation to the latter.
He falls heavy upon licentiates, and seems to point more particularly at us
who are not regularly of the faculty. But since he has been so civil to me as
to meddle only with those who are employed no further than about men's
lives, and not reflected upon me as of the astrological sect, who concern
ourselves about lives and fortunes also, I am not so much hurt as to stifle
any part of his fond letter.[4]

"Sir,
am afraid there is something in the suspicions of some people, that you
"I begin to be short of matter for your Lucubrations. Though several of
them now and then did appear somewhat dull and insipid to me, I was
always charitably inclined to believe the fault lay in myself, and that I
wanted the true key to uncipher your mysteries, and remember your
advertisement upon this account. But since I have seen you fall in an
unpardonable error, yea, with a relapse: I mean, since I have seen you turn

politician in the present unhappy dissensions, I have begun to stagger, and
could not choose but lessen the great value I had for the censor of our isle.
How is it possible that a man, whom interest did naturally lead to a constant
impartiality in these matters, and who hath wit enough to judge that his
opinion was not like to make many proselytes; how is it possible, I say, that
a little passion (for I have still too good an opinion of you to think you was
bribed by the staggering party) could blind you so far as to offend the very
better half of the nation, and to lessen off so much the number of your
friends? Mr. Morphew will not have cause to thank you, unless you give
over, and endeavour to regain what you have lost. There is still a great
many themes you have left untouched; such as the ill-managements of
matters relating to law and physic, the setting down rules for knowing the
quacks in both professions. What a large field is there left in discovering the
abuses of the College, who had a charter and privileges granted them to
hinder the creeping in and prevailing of quacks and pretenders; and yet
grant licences to barbers, and write letters of recommendation in the
country towns, out of the reach of their practice, in favour of mere boys;
valuing the health and lives of their countrymen no further than they get
money by them. You have said very little or nothing about the dispensation
of justice in town and country, where clerks are the counsellors to their
masters.
"But as I can't expect that the censor of Great Britain should publish a letter,
wherein he is censured with too much reason himself; yet I hope you will
be the better for it, and think upon the themes I have mentioned, which
must certainly be of greater service to the world, yourself, and Mr.
Morphew, than to let us know whether you are a Whig or a Tory. I am still
"Your Admirer and Servant,
"Cato Junior."

This gentleman and I differ about the words "staggering" and "better part";
but instead of answering to the particulars of this epistle, I shall only
acquaint my correspondent, that I am at present forming my thoughts upon
the foundation of Sir Scudamore's progress in Spenser,[5] which has led me

from all other amusements, to consider the state of love in this island; and
from the corruptions in the government of that, to deduce the chief evils of
life. In the meantime that I am thus employed, I have given positive orders
to Don Saltero,[6] of Chelsea, the tooth-drawer, and Dr. Thomas Smith,[7]
the corn-cutter, of King Street, Westminster (who have the modesty to
confine their pretensions to manual operations), to bring me in, with all
convenient speed, complete lists of all who are but of equal learning with
themselves, and yet administer physic beyond the feet and gums. These
advices I shall reserve for my future leisure; but have now taken a
resolution to dedicate the remaining part of this instant July to the service of
the fair sex, and have almost finished a scheme for settling the whole
remainder of that sex who are unmarried, and above the age of twenty-five.
In order to this good and public service, I shall consider the passion of love
in its full extent, as it is attended both with joys and inquietudes; and lay
down, for the conduct of my lovers, such rules as shall banish the cares, and
heighten the pleasures, which flow from that amiable spring of life and
happiness. There is no less than an absolute necessity that some provision
be made to take off the dead stock of women in city, town, and country. Let
there happen but the least disorder in the streets, and in an instant you see
the inequality of the numbers of males and females. Besides that the
feminine crowd on such occasions is more numerous in the open way, you
may observe them also to the very garrets huddled together, four at least at a
casement. Add to this, that by an exact calculation of all that have come to
town by stage-coach or waggon for this twelvemonth last, three times in
four the treated persons have been males. This over-stock of beauty, for
which there are so few bidders, calls for an immediate supply of lovers and
husbands; and I am the studious knight-errant who have suffered long
nocturnal contemplations to find out methods for the relief of all British
females who at present seem to be devoted to involuntary virginity. The
scheme upon which I design to act, I have communicated to none but a
beauteous young lady (who has for some time left the town), in the
following letter:

"To Amanda, in Kent.

"Madam,
send with this, my discourse of ways and means for encouraging
"I marriage, and repeopling the island. You will soon observe, that
according to these rules, the mean considerations (which make beauty
and merit cease to be the objects of love and courtship) will be fully
exploded. I have unanswerably proved, that jointures and settlements are
the bane of happiness; and not only so, but the ruin even of their fortunes
who enter into them. I beg of you, therefore, to come to town upon the
receipt of this, where I promise you, you shall have as many lovers as
toasters; for there needed nothing but to make men's interests fall in with
their inclinations, to render you the most courted of your sex. As many as
love you will now be willing to marry you: hasten then, and be the
honourable mistress of mankind. Cassander, and many others, stand in the
Gate of Good Desert[8] to receive you. I am,
"Madam,
"Your most obedient,
"Most humble Servant,
"Isaac Bickerstaff."

FOOTNOTES:
[4] It has been suggested that this letter is by Swift. The Examiner, vol. iv. No.
43, said that Steele's friends "acquainted him with many little incidents and
corruptions in low life which he has not touched upon; but, instead of a
favourable answer, he has rejected all their hints for mirth and waggery, and
transcribed scraps of politics, &c." Another protest against Steele's incursion into
politics is printed in Lillie's "Original Letters sent to the Tatler and Spectator" i.
56.
[5] See No. 194.
[6] See Nos. 34 and 221.
[7] See No. 103.
[8] "Faërie Queene," Book iv. c. 10. See No. 194.

No. 196. [Steele.
From Saturday, July 8, to Tuesday, July 11, 1710.

Dulcis inexperto cultura potentis amici:
Expertus metuit——

Hor., I Ep. xviii. 86.

From my own Apartment, July 10.

he intended course of my studies was altered this evening by a visit
T from an old acquaintance, who complained to me, mentioning one
upon whom he had long depended, that he found his labour and
perseverance in his patron's service and interests wholly ineffectual; and he
thought now, after his best years were spent in a professed adherence to him
and his fortunes, he should in the end be forced to break with him, and give
over all further expectations from him. He sighed, and ended his discourse
by saying, "You, Mr. Censor, some time ago, gave us your thoughts of the
behaviour of great men to their creditors. This sort of demand upon them,
for what they invite men to expect, is a debt of honour, which, according to
custom, they ought to be most careful of paying, and would be a very
worthy subject for a lucubration."
Of all men living, I think, I am the most proper to treat of this matter;
because in the character and employment of censor, I have had
encouragement so infinitely above my desert, that what I say cannot
possibly be supposed to arise from peevishness, or any disappointment in
that kind which I myself have met with. When we consider patrons and
their clients, those who receive addresses, and those who are addressed to, it
must not be understood that the dependants are such as are worthless in
their natures, abandoned to any vice or dishonour, or such as without a call
thrust themselves upon men in power; nor when we say patrons, do we
mean such as have it not in their power, or have no obligation, to assist their

friends; but we speak of such leagues where there are power and obligation
on the one part, and merit and expectation on the other. Were we to be very
particular on this subject, I take it that the division of patron and client may
include a third part of our nation. The want of merit and real worth will
strike out about ninety-nine in the hundred of these, and want of ability in
the patron will dispose of as many of that order. He who out of mere vanity
to be applied to will take up another's time and fortune in his service, where
he has no prospect of returning it, is as much more unjust as those who took
up my friend the upholder's[9] goods without paying him for them. I say, he
is as much more unjust as our life and time is more valuable than our goods
and movables. Among many whom you see about the great, there is a
contented, well-pleased set, who seem to like the attendance for its own
sake, and are early at the abodes of the powerful, out of mere fashion. This
sort of vanity is as well grounded as if a man should lay aside his own plain
suit, and dress himself up in a gay livery of another's.
There are many of this species who exclude others of just expectation, and
make those proper dependants appear impatient, because they are not so
cheerful as those who expect nothing. I have made use of the penny post for
the instruction of these voluntary slaves, and informed them, that they will
never be provided for; but they double their diligence upon admonition.
Will Afterday has told his friends, that he was to have the next thing these
ten years; and Harry Linger has been fourteen within a month of a
considerable office. However the fantastic complaisance which is paid to
them may blind the great from seeing themselves in a just light, they must
needs (if they in the least reflect) at some times have a sense of the injustice
they do in raising in others a false expectation. But this is so common a
practice in all the stages of power, that there are not more cripples come out
of the wars than from the attendance of patrons. You see in one a settled
melancholy, in another a bridled rage, a third has lost his memory, and a
fourth his whole constitution and humour. In a word, when you see a
particular cast of mind or body, which looks a little upon the distracted, you
may be sure the poor gentleman has formerly had great friends. For this
reason, I have thought it a prudent thing to take a nephew of mine out of a
lady's service, where he was a page, and have bound him to a shoemaker.
But what of all the humours under the sun is the most pleasant to consider,
is, that you see some men lay as it were a set of acquaintance by them, to

converse with when they are out of employment, who had no effect of their
power when they were in. Here patrons and clients both make the most
fantastical figure imaginable. Friendship indeed is most manifested in
adversity; but I do not know how to behave myself to a man who thinks me
his friend at no other time but that. Dick Reptile of our club had this in his
head the other night, when he said, "I am afraid of ill news when I am
visited by any of my old friends." These patrons are a little like some fine
gentlemen, who spend all their hours of gaiety with their wenches, but
when they fall sick, will let no one come near them but their wives. It
seems, truth and honour are companions too sober for prosperity. It is
certainly the most black ingratitude to accept of a man's best endeavours to
be pleasing to you, and return it with indifference.
I am so much of this mind, that Dick Estcourt[10] the comedian, for coming
one night to our club, though he laughed at us all the time he was there,
shall have our company at his play on Thursday. A man of talents is to be
favoured, or never admitted. Let the ordinary world truck for money and
wares, but men of spirit and conversation should in every kind do others as
much pleasure as they receive from them. But men are so taken up with
outward forms, that they do not consider their actions; else how should it
be, that a man shall deny that to the entreaties and almost tears of an old
friend, which he shall solicit a new one to accept of? I remember, when I
first came out of Staffordshire, I had an intimacy with a man of quality, in
whose gift there fell a very good employment. All the town cried, "There's a
thing for Mr. Bickerstaff!" when, to my great astonishment, I found my
patron had been forced upon twenty artifices to surprise a man with it who
never thought of it. But sure it is a degree of murder to amuse men with
vain hopes. If a man takes away another's life, where is the difference,
whether he does it by taking away the minutes of his time, or the drops of
his blood? But indeed, such as have hearts barren of kindness are served
accordingly by those whom they employ, and pass their lives away with an
empty show of civility for love, and an insipid intercourse of a commerce in
which their affections are no way concerned. But on the other side, how
beautiful is the life of a patron who performs his duty to his inferiors? a
worthy merchant who employs a crowd of artificers? a great lord who is
generous and merciful to the several necessities of his tenants? a courtier
who uses his credit and power for the welfare of his friends? These have in
their several stations a quick relish of the exquisite pleasure of doing good.

In a word, good patrons are like the guardian angels of Plato, who are ever
busy, though unseen, in the care of their wards; but ill patrons are like the
deities of Epicurus, supine, indolent, and unconcerned, though they see
mortals in storms and tempests even while they are offering incense to their
power.

FOOTNOTES:
[9] See No. 180.
[10] See Nos. 51 and 130.

No. 197. [Steele.
From Tuesday, July 11, to Thursday, July 13, 1710.
Semper ego auditor tantum?—Juv., Sat. i. I.

Grecian Coffee-house, July 12.

hen I came hither this evening, the man of the house delivered me a
W book very finely bound. When I received it, I overheard one of the
boys whisper another, and say, "It was a fine thing to be a great
scholar! What a pretty book that is!" It has indeed a very gay outside, and is
dedicated to me by a very ingenious gentleman, who does not put his name
to it. The title of it (for the work is in Latin) is, "Epistolarum Obscurorum
Virorum, ad Dm. M. Ortuinum Gratium, Volumina II. &c."[11] ("The
Epistles of the Obscure Writers to Ortuinus, &c."). The purpose of the work
is signified in the dedication, in very elegant language, and fine raillery. It
seems this is a collection of letters which some profound blockheads, who
lived before our times, have written in honour of each other, and for their
mutual information in each other's absurdities. They are mostly of the
German nation, whence from time to time inundations of writers have
flowed, more pernicious to the learned world than the swarms of Goths and
Vandals to the politic. It is, methinks, wonderful, that fellows could be
awake, and utter such incoherent conceptions, and converse with great
gravity like learned men, without the least taste of knowledge or good
sense. It would have been an endless labour to have taken any other method
of exposing such impertinences, than by an edition of their own works,
where you see their follies, according to the ambition of such virtuosi, in a
most correct edition.
Looking over these accomplished labours, I could not but reflect upon the
immense load of writings which the commonalty of scholars have pushed
into the world, and the absurdity of parents, who educate crowds to spend
their time in pursuit of such cold and sprightless endeavours to appear in
public. It seems therefore a fruitless labour to attempt the correction of the

taste of our contemporaries, except it was in our power to burn all the
senseless labours of our ancestors. There is a secret propensity in nature
from generation to generation in the blockheads of one age to admire those
of another; and men of the same imperfections are as great admirers of each
other, as those of the same abilities.
This great mischief of voluminous follies proceeds from a misfortune which
happens in all ages, that men of barren geniuses, but fertile imaginations,
are bred scholars. This may at first appear a paradox; but when we consider
the talking creatures we meet in public places, it will no longer be such.
Ralph Shallow is a young fellow, that has not by nature any the least
propensity to strike into what has not been observed and said every day of
his life by others; but with that inability of speaking anything that is
uncommon, he has a great readiness at what he can speak of, and his
imagination runs into all the different views of the subject he treats of in a
moment. If Ralph had learning added to the common chit-chat of the town,
he would have been a disputant upon all topics that ever were considered by
men of his own genius. As for my part, I never am teased by an empty
town-fellow, but I bless my stars that he was not bred a scholar. This
addition, we must consider, would have made him capable of maintaining
his follies. His being in the wrong would have been protected by suitable
arguments; and when he was hedged in by logical terms, and false
appearances, you must have owned yourself convinced before you could
then have got rid of him, and the shame of his triumph had been added to
the pain of his impertinence.
There is a sort of littleness in the minds of men of wrong sense, which
makes them much more insufferable than mere fools, and has the further
inconvenience of being attended by an endless loquacity. For which reason,
it would be a very proper work, if some well-wisher to human society
would consider the terms upon which people meet in public places, in order
to prevent the unseasonable declamations which we meet with there. I
remember, in my youth it was a humour at the University, when a fellow
pretended to be more eloquent than ordinary, and had formed to himself a
plot to gain all our admiration, or triumph over us with an argument, to
either of which he had no manner of call; I say, in either of these cases, it
was the humour to shut one eye. This whimsical way of taking notice to
him of his absurdity, has prevented many a man from being a coxcomb. If

amongst us on such an occasion each man offered a voluntary rhetorician
some snuff, it would probably produce the same effect. As the matter now
stands, whether a man will or no, he is obliged to be informed in whatever
another pleases to entertain him with, though the preceptor makes these
advances out of vanity, and not to instruct, but insult him.
There is no man will allow him who wants courage to be called a soldier;
but men who want good sense are very frequently not only allowed to be
scholars, but esteemed for being such. At the same time it must be granted,
that as courage is the natural part of a soldier, so is a good understanding of
a scholar. Such little minds as these, whose productions are collected in the
volume to which I have the honour to be patron, are the instruments for
artful men to work with, and become popular with the unthinking part of
mankind. In courts, they make transparent flatterers; in camps, ostentatious
bullies; in colleges, unintelligible pedants; and their faculties are used
accordingly by those who lead them.
When a man who wants judgment is admitted into the conversation of
reasonable men, he shall remember such improper circumstances, and draw
such groundless conclusions from their discourse, and that with such colour
of sense, as would divide the best set of company that can be got together. It
is just thus with a fool who has a familiarity with books, he shall quote and
recite one author against another, in such a manner as shall puzzle the best
understanding to refute him; though the most ordinary capacity may
observe, that it is only ignorance which makes the intricacy. All the true use
of that we call learning, is to ennoble and improve our natural faculties, and
not to disguise our imperfections. It is therefore in vain for folly to attempt
to conceal itself by the refuge of learned languages. Literature does but
make a man more eminently the thing which nature made him; and
Polyglottes, had he studied less than he has, and written only in his mother
tongue, had been known only in Great Britain for a pedant.
Mr. Bickerstaff thanks Dorinda, and will both answer her letter,[12] and take
her advice.

FOOTNOTES:
[11] Steele was apparently unaware that the letters in this famous book were a
satire, directed against the clergy of the Catholic Church. The letters, written by

Ulrich von Hutten and his friends, purported to be from certain monks and
theologians to Ortuinus Gratius, doctor of theology. They were intended to
ridicule the bad Latin of the clergy, and in every way to satirise the anti-reform
party. (See Bayle's "Dictionary," Arts. Hochstrat and Hutten; and Retrospective
Review, v. 56.) The elegant edition of this book published in London in 1710, in
12mo, was dedicated to Steele by the editor, Maittaire.
[12] No mention is afterwards made of Dorinda.

No. 198. [Steele.
From Thursday, July 13, to Saturday, July 15,
1710.

Quale sit id quod amas celeri circumspice mente,
Et tua læsuro substrahe colla jugo.

Ovid, Rem. Amor., i. 89.[13]

From my own Apartment, July 14.
The History of Cælia.

t is not necessary to look back into the first years of this young lady,
I whose story is of consequence only as her life has lately met with
passages very uncommon. She is now in the twentieth year of her age,
and owes a strict, but cheerful education, to the care of an aunt, to whom
she was recommended by her dying father, whose decease was hastened by
an inconsolable affliction for the loss of her mother. As Cælia is the
offspring of the most generous passion that has been known in our age, she
is adorned with as much beauty and grace as the most celebrated of her sex
possess; but her domestic life, moderate fortune, and religious education
gave her but little opportunity, and less inclination, to be admired in public
assemblies. Her abode has been for some years a convenient distance from
the Cathedral of St. Paul's, where her aunt and she chose to reside, for the
advantage of that rapturous way of devotion which gives ecstasy to the
pleasures of innocence, and, in some measure, is the immediate possession
of those heavenly enjoyments for which they are addressed.
As you may trace the usual thoughts of men in their countenances, there
appeared in the face of Cælia a cheerfulness, the constant companion of
unaffected virtue, and a gladness, which is as inseparable from true piety.
Her every look and motion spoke the peaceful, mild, resigning, humble

inhabitant that animated her beauteous body. Her air discovered her body a
mere machine of her mind, and not that her thoughts were employed in
studying graces and attractions for her person. Such was Cælia when she
was first seen by Palamede at her usual place of worship. Palamede is a
young man of two-and-twenty, well-fashioned, learned, genteel, and
discreet, and son and heir of a gentleman of a very great estate, and himself
possessed of a plentiful one by the gift of an uncle. He became enamoured
with Cælia, and after having learned her habitation, had address enough to
communicate his passion and circumstances with such an air of good sense
and integrity, as soon obtained permission to visit and profess his
inclinations towards her. Palamede's present fortune and future expectations
were no way prejudicial to his addresses; but after the lovers had passed
some time in the agreeable entertainments of a successful courtship, Cælia
one day took occasion to interrupt Palamede in the midst of a very pleasing
discourse of the happiness he promised himself in so accomplished a
companion, and assuming a serious air, told him, there was another heart to
be won before he gained hers, which was that of his father. Palamede
seemed much disturbed at the overture, and lamented to her, that his father
was one of those too provident parents, who only place their thoughts upon
bringing riches into their families by marriages, and are wholly insensible
of all other considerations. But the strictness of Cælia's rules of life made
her insist upon this demand; and the son, at a proper hour, communicated to
his father the circumstances of his love, and the merit of the object. The
next day the father made her a visit. The beauty of her person, the fame of
her virtue, and a certain irresistible charm in her whole behaviour on so
tender and delicate an occasion, wrought so much upon him, in spite of all
prepossessions, that he hastened the marriage with an impatience equal to
that of his son. Their nuptials were celebrated with a privacy suitable to the
character and modesty of Cælia, and from that day, till a fatal one of last
week, they lived together with all the joy and happiness which attend minds
entirely united.
It should have been intimated, that Palamede is a student of the Temple, and
usually retired thither early in a morning, Cælia still sleeping.
It happened a few days since, that she followed him thither to communicate
to him something she had omitted in her redundant fondness to speak of the
evening before. When she came to his apartment, the servant there told her,

she was coming with a letter to her. While Cælia in an inner room was
reading an apology from her husband, that he had been suddenly taken by
some of his acquaintance to dine at Brentford, but that he should return in
the evening, a country girl, decently clad, asked, if those were not the
chambers of Mr. Palamede? She was answered, they were, but that he was
not in town. The stranger asked, when he was expected at home? The
servant replied, she would go in and ask his wife. The young woman
repeated the word "wife," and fainted. This accident raised no less curiosity
than amazement in Cælia, who caused her to be removed into the inner
room. Upon proper applications to revive her, the unhappy young creature
returned to herself, and said to Cælia, with an earnest and beseeching tone,
"Are you really Mr. Palamede's wife?" Cælia replies, "I hope I do not look
as if I were any other in the condition you see me." The stranger answers,
"No, madam, he is my husband." At the same instant she threw a bundle of
letters into Cælia's lap, which confirmed the truth of what she asserted.
Their mutual innocence and sorrow made them look at each other as
partners in distress, rather than rivals in love. The superiority of Cælia's
understanding and genius gave her an authority to examine into this
adventure as if she had been offended against, and the other the delinquent.
The stranger spoke in the following manner:
"Madam, if it shall please you, Mr. Palamede having an uncle of a good
estate near Winchester, was bred at the school there, to gain the more his
good-will by being in his sight. His uncle died, and left him the estate,
which my husband now has. When he was a mere youth he set his
affections on me: but when he could not gain his ends he married me,
making me and my mother, who is a farmer's widow, swear we would never
tell it upon any account whatsoever; for that it would not look well for him
to marry such a one as me; besides, that his father would cut him off of the
estate. I was glad to have him in an honest way, and he now and then came
and stayed a night and away at our house. But very lately he came down to
see us, with a fine young gentleman his friend, who stayed behind there
with us, pretending to like the place for the summer; but ever since Master
Palamede went, he has attempted to abuse me; and I ran hither to acquaint
him with it, and avoid the wicked intentions of his false friend."
Cælia had no more room for doubt, but left her rival the same agonies she
felt herself. Palamede returns in the evening, and finding his wife at his

chambers, learned all that had passed, and hastened to Cælia's lodgings.
It is much easier to imagine than express the sentiments of either the
criminal or the injured at this encounter.
As soon as Palamede had found way for speech, he confessed his marriage,
and his placing his companion on purpose to vitiate his wife, that he might
break through a marriage made in his nonage, and devote his riper and
knowing years to Cælia. She made him no answer; but retired to her closet.
He returned to the Temple, where he soon after received from her the
following letter:

"Sir,
ou, who this morning were the best, are now the worst of men who
"Y breathe vital air. I am at once overwhelmed with love, hatred, rage,
and disdain. Can infamy and innocence live together? I feel the
weight of the one too strong for the comfort of the other. How bitter,
Heaven, how bitter is my portion! How much have I to say; but the infant
which I bear about me stirs with my agitation. I am, Palamede, to live in
shame, and this creature be heir to it. Farewell for ever."

FOOTNOTES:
[13] This quotation is attributed erroneously to Horace in the early editions.

No. 199. [Steele.[14]
From Saturday, July 15, to Tuesday, July 18, 1710.
hen we revolve in our thoughts such catastrophes as that in the
W history of the unhappy Cælia, there seems to be something so
hazardous in the changing a single state of life into that of marriage,
that (it may happen) all the precautions imaginable are not sufficient to
defend a virgin from ruin by her choice. It seems a wonderful inconsistence
in the distribution of public justice, that a man who robs a woman of an ear-
ring or a jewel, should be punished with death; but one who by false arts
and insinuations should take from her her very self, is only to suffer
disgrace. This excellent young woman has nothing to console herself with,
but the reflection that her sufferings are not the effect of any guilt or
misconduct, and has for her protection the influence of a power which,
amidst the unjust reproach of all mankind, can give not only patience, but
pleasure to innocence in distress.
As the person who is the criminal against Cælia cannot be sufficiently
punished according to our present law, so are there numberless unhappy
persons without remedy according to present custom. That great ill which
has prevailed among us in these latter ages, is the making even beauty and
virtue the purchase of money. The generality of parents, and some of those
of quality, instead of looking out for introducing health of constitution,
frankness of spirit, or dignity of countenance, into their families, lay out all
their thoughts upon finding out matches for their estates, and not their
children. You shall have one form a plot for the good of his family, that
there shall not be six men in England capable of pretending to his daughter.
A second shall have a son obliged, out of mere discretion, for fear of doing
anything below himself, follow all the drabs in town. These sage parents
meet; and as there is no pass, no courtship, between the young ones, it is no
unpleasant observation to behold how they proceed to treaty. There is ever
in the behaviour of each something that denotes his circumstance; and
honest Coupler the conveniencer says, he can distinguish upon sight of the
parties, before they have opened any point of their business, which of the

two has the daughter to sell. Coupler is of our club, and I have frequently
heard him declaim upon this subject, and assert, that the marriage-
settlements which are now used have grown fashionable even within his
memory.
When the theatre in some late reigns owed its chief support to those scenes
which were written to put matrimony out of countenance, and render that
state terrible, then it was that pin-money[15] first prevailed, and all the other
articles inserted which create a diffidence; and intimate to the young people,
that they are very soon to be in a state of war with each other: though this
had seldom happened, except the fear of it had been expressed. Coupler will
tell you also, that jointures were never frequent till the age before his own;
but the women were contented with the third part of the estate the law
allotted them, and scorned to engage with men whom they thought capable
of abusing their children. He has also informed me, that those who were the
oldest benchers when he came to the Temple told him, the first marriage-
settlement of considerable length was the invention of an old serjeant, who
took the opportunity of two testy fathers, who were ever squabbling to bring
about an alliance between their children. These fellows knew each other to
be knaves, and the serjeant took hold of their mutual diffidence, for the
benefit of the law, to extend the settlement to three skins of parchment.
To this great benefactor to the profession is owing the present price current
of lines and words. Thus is tenderness thrown out of the question; and the
great care is, what the young couple shall do when they come to hate each
other? I do not question but from this one humour of settlements, might
very fairly be deduced not only our present defection in point of morals, but
also our want of people. This has given way to such unreasonable
gallantries, that a man is hardly reproachable that deceives an innocent
woman, though she has never so much merit, if she is below him in fortune.
The man has no dishonour following his treachery; and her own sex are so
debased by force of custom, as to say in the case of the woman, "How could
she expect he would marry her."
By this means the good offices, the pleasures and graces of life, are not put
into the balance: the bridegroom has given his estate out of himself, and he
has no more left but to follow the blind decree of his fate, whether he shall
be succeeded by a sot, or a man of merit, in his fortune. On the other side, a
fine woman, who has also a fortune, is set up by way of auction; her first

lover has ten to one against him. The very hour after he has opened his heart
and his rent-roll, he is made no other use of, but to raise her price. She and
her friends lose no opportunity of publishing it to call in new bidders. While
the poor lover very innocently waits till the plenipotentiaries at the Inns of
Court have debated about the alliance, all the partisans of the lady throw
difficulties in the way, till other offers come in; and the man who came first
is not put in possession, till she has been refused by half the town. If an
abhorrence to such mercenary proceedings were well settled in the minds of
my fair readers, those of merit would have a way opened to their
advancement; nay, those who abound in wealth only, would in reality find
their account in it. It would not be in the power of their prude acquaintance,
their waiters, their nurses, cousins and whisperers, to persuade them, that
there are not above twenty men in a kingdom (and those such as perhaps
they may never set eyes on) whom they can think of with discretion. As the
case stands now, let any one consider, how the great heiresses, and those to
whom they were offered, for no other reason but that they could make them
suitable settlements, live together. What can be more insipid, if not
loathsome, than for two persons to be at the head of a crowd, who have as
little regard for them as they for each other, and behold one another in an
affected sense of prosperity, without the least relish of that exquisite
gladness at meeting, that sweet inquietude at parting, together with the
charms of voice, look, gesture, and that general benevolence between well-
chosen lovers, which makes all things please, and leaves not the least trifle
indifferent.
But I am diverted from these sketches for future essays[16] in behalf of my
numerous clients of the fair sex, by a notice sent to my office in Sheer Lane,
that a blooming widow, in the third year of her widowhood, and twenty-
sixth of her age, designs to take a colonel of twenty-eight. The parties
request I would draw up their terms of coming together, as having a regard
to my opinion against long and diffident settlements; and I have sent them
the following indenture:

"We John —— and Mary —— having estates for life, resolve to take each
other. I John will venture my life to enrich thee Mary; and I Mary will

consult my health to nurse thee John. To which we have interchangeably set
our hands, hearts, and seals, this 17th of July, 1710."

FOOTNOTES:
[14] This paper was probably based on notes by Edward Wortley Montagu. See
note to No. 223.
[15] See Addison's paper in the Spectator; No. 295, and Sir Harry Gubbin's
complaints of "that cursed pin-money" in Steele's "Tender Husband," act i. sc. 2.
In No. 231 of the Tatler, Steele says, "The lawyers finished the writings, in
which, by the way, there was no pin-money, and they were married."
[16] See No. 223.

No. 200. [Steele.
From Tuesday, July 18, to Thursday, July 20, 1710.
From my own Apartment, July 19.

aving devoted the greater part of my time to the service of the fair sex,
H I must ask pardon of my men correspondents if I postpone their
commands, when I have any from the ladies which lie unanswered.
That which follows is of importance:

"Sir,
ou can't think it strange if I, who know little of the world, apply to
"Y you for advice in the weighty affair of matrimony, since you
yourself have often declared it to be of that consequence as to
require the utmost deliberation. Without further preface, therefore, give me
leave to tell you, that my father at his death left me a fortune sufficient to
make me a match for any gentleman. My mother (for she is still alive) is
very pressing with me to marry; and I am apt to think, to gratify her, I shall
venture upon one of two gentlemen who at this time make their addresses to
me. My request is, that you would direct me in my choice; which that you
may the better do, I shall give you their characters; and to avoid confusion,
desire you to call them by the names of Philander and Silvius. Philander is
young, and has a good estate; Silvius is as young, and has a better. The
former has had a liberal education, has seen the town, is retired from thence
to his estate in the country, is a man of few words, and much given to
books. The latter was brought up under his father's eye, who gave him just
learning enough to enable him to keep his accounts; but made him withal
very expert in country business, such as ploughing, sowing, buying, selling,
and the like. They are both very sober men, neither of their persons is
disagreeable, nor did I know which to prefer till I had heard them discourse;
when the conversation of Philander so much prevailed, as to give him the

advantage, with me, in all other respects. My mother pleads strongly for
Silvius, and uses these arguments, that he not only has the larger estate at
present, but by his good husbandry and management increases it daily; that
his little knowledge in other affairs will make him easy and tractable;
whereas (according to her) men of letters know too much to make good
husbands. To part of this I imagine I answer effectually, by saying,
Philander's estate is large enough; that they who think £2000 a year
sufficient, make no difference between that and three. I easily believe him
less conversant in those affairs, the knowledge of which she so much
commends in Silvius; but I think them neither so necessary or becoming in
a gentleman as the accomplishments of Philander. It is no great character of
a man to say, he rides in his coach and six, and understands as much as he
who follows his plough. Add to this, that the conversation of these sort of
men seems so disagreeable to me, that though they may make good bailiffs,
I can hardly be persuaded they can be good companions. It is possible I may
seem to have odd notions, when I say I am not fond of a man only for being
of (what is called) a thriving temper. To conclude, I own I am at a loss to
conceive how good sense should make a man an ill husband, or conversing
with books less complaisant.
"Cælia."
The resolution which this lady is going to take, she may very well say is
founded on reason: for after the necessities of life are served, there is no
manner of competition between a man of liberal education and an illiterate.
Men are not altered by their circumstances, but as they give them
opportunities of exerting what they are in themselves; and a powerful clown
is a tyrant in the most ugly form he can possibly appear. There lies a
seeming objection in the thoughtful manner of Philander: but let her
consider which she shall oftener have occasion to wish, that Philander
would speak, or Silvius hold his tongue.
The train of my discourse is prevented by the urgent haste of another
correspondent:

July 14.

"Mr. Bickerstaff,
his comes to you from one of those virgins of twenty-five years old
"T and upwards, that you, like a patron of the distressed, promised to
provide for;[17] who makes it her humble request, that no occasional
stories or subjects may (as they have for three or four of your last days)
prevent your publishing the scheme you have communicated to Amanda,
for every day and hour is of the greatest consequence to damsels of so
advanced an age. Be quick then, if you intend to do any service for
"Your Admirer,
"Diana Forecast."
In this important affair, I have not neglected the proposals of others. Among
them is the following sketch of a lottery for persons. The author of it has
proposed very ample encouragement, not only to myself, but also to Charles
Lillie and John Morphew. If the matter bears, I shall not be unjust to his
merit: I only desire to enlarge his plan; for which purpose I lay it before the
town, as well for the improvement as encouragement of it.

The Amicable Contribution for raising the Fortunes of Ten
Young Ladies.

mprimis, It is proposed to raise 100,000 crowns by way of lots, which
"I will advance for each lady £2500, which sum, together with one of
the ladies, the gentleman that shall be so happy as to draw a prize
(provided they both like), will be entitled to, under such restrictions
hereafter mentioned. And in case they do not like, then either party that
refuses shall be entitled to £1000 only, and the remainder to him or her that
shall be willing to marry, the man being first to declare his mind. But it is
provided, that if both parties shall consent to have one another, the
gentleman shall, before he receives the money thus raised, settle £1000 of
the same in substantial hands (who shall be as trustees for the said ladies),
and shall have the whole and sole disposal of it for her use only.
"Note.—Each party shall have three months' time to consider, after an
interview had, which shall be within ten days after the lots are drawn.

"Note also.—The name and place of abode of the prize shall be placed on a
proper ticket.
"Item.—They shall be ladies that have had a liberal education, between
fifteen and twenty-three, all genteel, witty, and of unblamable characters.
"The money to be raised shall be kept in an iron box, and when there shall
be 2000 subscriptions, which amounts to £500, it shall be taken out and put
into a goldsmith's hands, and the note made payable to the proper lady, or
her assigns (with a clause therein to hinder her from receiving it, till the
fortunate person that draws her shall first sign the note), and so on till the
whole sum is subscribed for: and as soon as 100,000 subscriptions are
completed, and 200 crowns more to pay the charges, the lottery shall be
drawn at a proper place, to be appointed a fortnight before the drawing."
Note.—Mr. Bickerstaff objects to the marriageable years here mentioned;
and is of opinion, they should not commence till after twenty-three. But he
appeals to the learned, both of Warwick Lane and Bishopsgate Street,[18] on
this subject.

FOOTNOTES:
[17] See No. 195.
[18] The College of Physicians met in Warwick Lane, and the Royal Society at
Gresham College, in Bishopsgate Street.

No. 201. [Steele.
From Thursday, July 20, to Saturday, July 22,
1710.
White's Chocolate-house, July 21.

t has been often asserted in these papers, that the great source of our
I wrong pursuits is the impertinent manner with which we treat women,
both in the common and important circumstances of life. In vain do we
say, the whole sex would run into England, while the privileges which are
allowed them do no way balance the inconveniences arising from those
very immunities. Our women have very much indulged to them in the
participation of our fortunes and our liberty; but the errors they commit in
the use of either, are by no means so impartially considered as the false
steps which are made by men. In the commerce of lovers, the man makes
the address, assails, and betrays, and yet stands in the same degree of
acceptance as he was in before he committed that treachery: the woman, for
no other crime but believing one whom she thought loved her, is treated
with shyness and indifference at the best, and commonly with reproach and
scorn. He that is past the power of beauty may talk of this matter with the
same unconcern as of any other subject: therefore I shall take upon me to
consider the sex, as they live within rules, and as they transgress them. The
ordinary class of the good or the ill have very little influence upon the
actions of others; but the eminent in either kind are those who lead the
world below them. The ill are employed in communicating scandal, infamy,
and disease, like furies; the good distribute benevolence, friendship, and
health, like angels. The ill are damped with pain and anguish at the sight of
all that is laudable, lovely, or happy. The virtuous are touched with
commiseration toward the guilty, the disagreeable, and the wretched. There
are those who betray the innocent of their own sex, and solicit the lewd of
ours. There are those who have abandoned the very memory, not only of
innocence, but shame. There are those who never forgave, nor could ever
bear being forgiven. There are also who visit the beds of the sick, lull the

cares of the sorrowful, and double the joys of the joyful. Such is the
destroying fiend, such the guardian angel, woman.
The way to have a greater number of the amiable part of womankind, and
lessen the crowd of the other sort, is to contribute what we can to the
success of well-grounded passions; and therefore I comply with the request
of an enamoured man in inserting the following billet:

"Madam,
r. Bickerstaff you always read, though me you will never hear. I am
"M obliged therefore to his compassion for the opportunity of
imploring yours. I sigh for the most accomplished of her sex. That
is so just a distinction of her to whom I write, that the owning I think so is
no distinction of me who write. Your good qualities are peculiar to you, my
admiration in common with thousands. I shall be present when you read
this, but fear every woman will take it for her character, sooner than she
who deserves it."
If the next letter which presents itself should come from the mistress of this
modest lover, and I make them break through the oppression of their
passions, I shall expect gloves at their nuptials.

"Mr. Bickerstaff,
ou that are a philosopher know very well the make of the mind of
"Y woman, and can best instruct me in the conduct of an affair which
highly concerns me. I never can admit my lover to speak to me of
love, yet think him impertinent when he offers to talk of anything else.
What shall I do with a man that always believes me? 'Tis a strange thing
this distance in men of sense; why do not they always urge their fate? If we
are sincere in our severity, you lose nothing by attempting. If we are
hypocrites, you certainly succeed."

From my own Apartment, July 21.

efore I withdraw from business for the night, it is my custom to receive
B all addresses to me, that others may go to rest as well as myself, at
least as far as I can contribute to it. When I called to know if any would
speak with me, I was informed that Mr. Mills,[19] the player, desired to be
admitted. He was so, and with much modesty acquainted me, as he did
other people of note, that "Hamlet" was to be acted on Wednesday next for
his benefit. I had long wanted to speak with this person, because I thought I
could admonish him of many things which would tend to his improvement.
In the general I observed to him, that though action was his business, the
way to that action was not to study gesture, for the behaviour would follow
the sentiments of the mind.
Action to the player, is what speech is to an orator. If the matter be well
conceived, words will flow with ease; and if the actor is well possessed of
the nature of his part, a proper action will necessarily follow. He informed
me, that Wilks was to act Hamlet. I desired him, to request of him in my
name, that he would wholly forget Mr. Betterton; for that he failed in no
part of Othello, but where he had him in view. An actor's forming himself
by the carriage of another, is like the trick among the widows, who lament
their husbands as their neighbours did theirs, and not according to their own
sentiments of the deceased.
There is a fault also in the audience which interrupts their satisfaction very
much, that is, the figuring to themselves the actor in some part wherein they
formerly particularly liked him, and not attending to the part he is at that
time performing. Thus, whatever Wilks (who is the strictest follower of
nature) is acting, the vulgar spectators turn their thoughts upon Sir Harry
Wildair.
When I had indulged the loquacity of an old man for some time in such
loose hints, I took my leave of Mr. Mills, and was told, Mr. Elliot[20] of St.
James's Coffee-house would speak with me. His business was to desire I
would, as I am an astrologer, let him know beforehand who were to have
the benefit tickets in the ensuing lottery; which knowledge he was of
opinion he could turn to great account, as he was concerned in news.

I granted his request, upon an oath of secrecy, that he would only make his
own use of it, and not let it be publicly known till after they were drawn. I
had not done speaking, when he produced to me a plan which he had
formed of keeping books, with the names of all such adventurers, and the
numbers of their tickets, as should come to him, in order to give an hourly
account[21] of what tickets shall come up during the whole time of the
lottery, the drawing of which is to begin on Wednesday next. I liked his
method of disguising the secret I had told him, and pronounced him a
thriving man who could so well watch the motion of things, and profit by a
prevailing humour and impatience so aptly, as to make his honest industry
agreeable to his customers, as it is to be the messenger of their good
fortune.

Advertisement.
From the Trumpet in Sheer Lane, July 20.

rdered, that for the improvement of the pleasures of society, a member
O of this house, one of the most wakeful of the soporific assembly
beyond Smithfield Bars, and one of the order of story-tellers in
Holborn, may meet and exchange stale matter, and report the same to their
principals.
N.B.—No man is to tell above one story in the same evening; but has liberty
to tell the same the night following.
Mr. Bickerstaff desires his love correspondents to vary the names they shall
assume in their future letters, for that he is overstocked with Philanders.

FOOTNOTES:
[19] John Mills, the elder, who died in 1736. Cibber says that Mills owed his
advancement to Wilks, to whose friendship his qualities as an "honest, quiet,
careful man, of as few faults as excellences, commended him." Mills' salary (see
table printed in vol. ii. p. 164) was the same as Betterton's—£4 a week, and £1
for his wife.
[20] On November 19, 1710, Swift and Steele met at the St. James's Coffee-
house. "This evening," says Swift, "I christened our coffee-man Elliot's child,
where the rogue had a most noble supper, and Steele and I sat among some
scurvy company over a bowl of punch; so that I am come late home."

[21] See No. 202, end.

No. 202. [Steele.
From Saturday, July 22, to Tuesday, July 25, 1710.

——Est hic,
Est Ulubris, animus si te non deficit æquus.

Hor., 1 Ep. xi. 30.

From my own Apartment, July 24.

his afternoon I went to visit a gentleman of my acquaintance at Mile
T End, and passing through Stepney Churchyard, I could not forbear
entertaining myself with the inscriptions on the tombs and graves.
Among others, I observed one with this notable memorial:
"Here lies the body of T.B."
This fantastical desire of being remembered only by the two first letters of a
name, led me into the contemplation of the vanity and imperfect
attainments of ambition in general. When I run back in my imagination all
the men whom I have ever known and conversed with in my whole life,
there are but very few who have not used their faculties in the pursuit of
what it is impossible to acquire, or left the possession of what they might
have been (at their setting out) masters, to search for it where it was out of
their reach. In this thought it was not possible to forget the instance of
Pyrrhus, who proposing to himself in discourse with a philosopher,[22] one,
and another, and another conquest, was asked, what he would do after all
that? "Then," says the King, "we will make merry." He was well answered,
"What hinders your doing that in the condition you are already?" The
restless desire of exerting themselves above the common level of mankind
is not to be resisted in some tempers; and minds of this make may be
observed in every condition of life. Where such men do not make to
themselves or meet with employment, the soil of their constitution runs into
tares and weeds. An old friend of mine, who lost a major's post forty years

ago, and quitted, has ever since studied maps, encampments, retreats, and
countermarches, with no other design but to feed his spleen and ill-humour,
and furnish himself with matter for arguing against all the successful
actions of others. He that at his first setting out in the world was the gayest
man in our regiment, ventured his life with alacrity, and enjoyed it with
satisfaction, encouraged men below him, and was courted by men above
him, has been ever since the most froward creature breathing. His warm
complexion spends itself now only in a general spirit of contradiction; for
which he watches all occasions, and is in his conversation still upon sentry,
treats all men like enemies, with every other impertinence of a speculative
warrior.
He that observes in himself this natural inquietude, should take all
imaginable care to put his mind in some method of gratification, or he will
soon find himself grow into the condition of this disappointed major.
Instead of courting proper occasions to rise above others, he will be ever
studious of pulling others down to him: it being the common refuge of
disappointed ambition, to ease themselves by detraction. It would be no
great argument against ambition, that there are such mortal things in the
disappointment of it; but it certainly is a forcible exception, that there can
be no solid happiness in the success of it. If we value popular praise, it is in
the power of the meanest of the people to disturb us by calumny. If the fame
of being happy, we cannot look into a village but we see crowds in actual
possession of what we seek only the appearance. To this may be added, that
there is I know not what malignity in the minds of ordinary men to oppose
you in what they see you fond of; and it is a certain exception against a
man's receiving applause, that he visibly courts it. However, this is not only
the passion of great and undertaking spirits, but you see it in the lives of
such as one would believe were far enough removed from the ways of
ambition. The rural squires of this nation even eat and drink out of vanity. A
vainglorious fox-hunter shall entertain half a county for the ostentation of
his beef and beer, without the least affection for any of the crowd about
him. He feeds them, because he thinks it a superiority over them that he
does so: and they devour him, because they know he treats them out of
insolence. This indeed is ambition in grotesque, but may figure to us the
condition of politer men, whose only pursuit is glory. When the superior
acts out of a principle of vanity, the dependant will be sure to allow it him;

because he knows it destructive of the very applause which is courted by
the man who favours him, and consequently makes him nearer himself.
But as every man living has more or less of this incentive, which makes
men impatient of an inactive condition, and urges men to attempt what may
tend to their reputation, it is absolutely necessary they should form to
themselves an ambition which is in every man's power to gratify. This
ambition would be independent, and would consist only in acting what to a
man's own mind appears most great and laudable. It is a pursuit in the
power of every man, and is only a regular prosecution of what he himself
approves. It is what can be interrupted by no outward accidents, for no man
can be robbed of his good intention. One of our society of the Trumpet
therefore started last night a notion which I thought had reason in it. "It is,
methinks," said he, "an unreasonable thing, that heroic virtue should (as it
seems to be at present) be confined to a certain order of men, and be
attainable by none but those whom fortune has elevated to the most
conspicuous stations. I would have everything to be esteemed as heroic
which is great and uncommon in the circumstances in the man who
performs it." Thus there would be no virtue in human life which every one
of the species would not have a pretence to arrive at, and an ardency to
exert. Since Fortune is not in our power, let us be as little as possible in
hers. Why should it be necessary that a man should be rich, to be generous?
If we measured by the quality, and not the quantity, of things, the particulars
which accompany an action are what should denominate it mean or great.
The highest station of human life is to be attained by each man that pretends
to it: for every man can be as valiant, as generous, as wise, and as merciful,
as the faculties and opportunities which he has from Heaven and fortune
will permit. He that can say to himself, I do as much good, and am as
virtuous, as my most earnest endeavours will allow me, whatever is his
station in the world, is to himself possessed of the highest honour. If
ambition is not thus turned, it is no other than a continual succession of
anxiety and vexation. But when it has this cast, it invigorates the mind, and
the consciousness of its own worth is a reward which it is not in the power
of envy, reproach, or detraction, to take from it. Thus the seat of solid
honour is in a man's own bosom, and no one can want support who is in
possession of an honest conscience, but he who would suffer the reproaches
of it for other greatness.

P.S.—I was going on in my philosophy, when notice was brought me that
there was a great crowd in my ante-chamber, who expected audience. When
they were admitted, I found they all met at my lodgings; each coming upon
the same errand, to know whether they were of the fortunate in the lottery,
which is now ready to be drawn. I was much at a loss how to extricate
myself from their importunity; but observing the assembly made up of both
sexes, I signified to them, that in this case it would appear Fortune is not
blind, for all the lots would fall upon the wisest and the fairest. This gave so
general a satisfaction, that the room was soon emptied, and the company
retired with the best air, and the most pleasing grace, I had anywhere
observed. Mr. Elliot[23] of St. James's Coffee-house now stood alone before
me, and signified to me, he had now not only prepared his books, but had
received a very great subscription already. His design was, to advertise his
subscribers at their respective places of abode, within an hour after their
number is drawn, whether it was a blank or benefit, if the adventurer lives
within the bills of mortality; if he dwells in the country, by the next post. I
encouraged the man in his industry, and told him, the ready path to good
fortune was to believe there was no such thing.

FOOTNOTES:
[22] Cineas the orator (see Plutarch's "Life of Pyrrhus").
[23] See No. 201.

No. 203. [Steele.
From Tuesday, July 25, to Thursday, July 27, 1710.
Ut tu fortunam, sic nos te, Celse, feremus.—Hor., 1 Ep. viii. 17.

From my own Apartment, July 26.

t is natural for the imaginations of men who lead their lives in too
I solitary a manner, to prey upon themselves, and form from their own
conceptions beings and things which have no place in nature. This often
makes an adept as much at a loss when he comes into the world as a mere
savage. To avoid therefore that ineptitude for society, which is frequently
the fault of us scholars, and has to men of understanding and breeding
something much more shocking and untractable than rusticity itself, I take
care to visit all public solemnities, and go into assemblies as often as my
studies will permit. This being therefore the first day of the drawing of the
lottery,[24] I did not neglect spending a considerable time in the crowd: but
as much a philosopher as I pretend to be, I could not but look with a sort of
veneration upon the two boys which received the tickets from the wheels, as
the impartial and equal dispensers of the fortunes which were to be
distributed among the crowd, who all stood expecting the same chance. It
seems at first thought very wonderful, that one passion should so
universally have the pre-eminence of another in the possession of men's
minds as that in this case; all in general have a secret hope of the great
ticket: and yet fear in another instance, as in going into a battle, shall have
so little influence, as that though each man believes there will be many
thousands slain, each is confident he himself shall escape. This certainty
proceeds from our vanity; for every man sees abundance in himself that
deserves reward, and nothing which should meet with mortification. But of
all the adventurers that filled the hall, there was one who stood by me, who
I could not but fancy expected the thousand pounds per annum, as a mere
justice to his parts and industry. He had his pencil and table-book, and was
at the drawing of each lot, counting how much a man with seven tickets was
now nearer the great prize, by the striking out another and another

competitor. This man was of the most particular constitution I had ever
observed; his passions were so active, that he worked in the utmost stretch
of hope and fear. When one rival fell before him, you might see a short
gleam of triumph in his countenance, which immediately vanished at the
approach of another. What added to the particularity of this man, was, that
he every moment cast a look, either upon the commissioners, the wheels, or
the boys. I gently whispered him, and asked, when he thought the thousand
pounds would come up? "Pugh!" says he, "who knows that?" and then
looks upon a little list of his own tickets, which were pretty high in their
numbers, and said it would not come this ten days. This fellow will have a
good chance, though not that which he has put his heart on. The man is
mechanically turned, and made for getting. The simplicity and eagerness
which he is in, argues an attention to his point; though what he is labouring
at does not in the least contribute to it. Were it not for such honest fellows
as these, the men who govern the rest of their species would have no tools
to work with: for the outward show of the world is carried on by such as
cannot find out that they are doing nothing. I left my man with great
reluctance, seeing the care he took to observe the whole conduct of the
persons concerned, and compute the inequality of the chances with his own
hands and eyes. "Dear sir," said I, "they must rise early that cheat you."
"Ay," said he, "there's nothing like a man's minding his business himself."
"'Tis very true," said I; "the master's eye makes the horse fat."
As it is much the greater number who are to go without prizes, it is but very
expedient to turn our lecture[25] to the forming just sentiments on the
subject of fortune. One said this morning, that the chief lot he was confident
would fall upon some puppy; but this gentleman is one of those wrong
tempers who approve only the unhappy, and have a natural prejudice to the
fortunate. But as it is certain that there is a great meanness in being attached
to a man purely for his fortune, there is no less a meanness in disliking him
for his happiness. It is the same perverseness under different colours, and
both these resentments arise from mere pride.
The true greatness of mind consists in valuing men apart from their
circumstances, or according to their behaviour in them. Wealth is a
distinction only in traffic; but it must not be allowed as a recommendation
in any other particular, but only just as it is applied. It was very prettily said,
that we may learn the little value of fortune by the persons on whom

Heaven is pleased to bestow it.[26] However, there is not a harder part in
human life than becoming wealth and greatness. He must be very well
stocked with merit, who is not willing to draw some superiority over his
friends from his fortune: for it is not every man that can entertain with the
air of a guest, and do good offices with the mien of one that receives them.
I must confess, I cannot conceive how a man can place himself in a figure
wherein he can so much enjoy his own soul, and that greatest of pleasures,
the just approbation of his own actions, than as an adventurer on this
occasion, to sit and see the lots go off without hope or fear, perfectly
unconcerned as to himself, but taking part in the good fortune of others.
I will believe there are happy tempers in being, to whom all the good that
arrives to any of their fellow-creatures gives a pleasure. These live in a
course of substantial and lasting happiness, and have the satisfaction to see
all men endeavour to gratify them. This state of mind not only lets a man
into certain enjoyments, but relieves him from as certain anxieties. If you
will not rejoice with happy men, you must repine at them. Dick Reptile
alluded to this when he said, he would hate no man out of pure idleness. As
for my own part, I look at fortune quite in another view than the rest of the
world; and, by my knowledge in futurity, tremble at the approaching prize
which I see coming to a young lady for whom I have much tenderness; and
have therefore written her the following letter, to be sent by Mr. Elliot with
the notice of her ticket:

"Madam,
ou receive at the instant this comes to your hands, an account of
"Y your having (what only you wanted) fortune; and to admonish you,
that you may not now want everything else. You had yesterday wit,
virtue, beauty; but you never heard of them till to-day. They say Fortune is
blind; but you will find she has opened the eyes of all your beholders. I
beseech you, madam, make use of the advantages of having been educated
without flattery. If you can still be Chloe, Fortune has indeed been kind to
you; if you are altered, she has it not in her power to give you an
equivalent."[27]

Grecian Coffee-house, July 26.

ome time ago a virtuoso, my very good friend, sent me a plan of a
S covered summer-house, which a little after was rallied by another of my
correspondents.[28] I cannot therefore defer giving him an opportunity
of making his defence to the learned in his own words.

"To Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq. "Sir, July 15, 1710.
have been this summer upon a ramble to visit several friends and
"I relations; which is the reason I have left you, and our ingenious,
unknown friend of South Wales, so long in your error concerning the
grass-plots in my green-house. I will not give you the particulars of my
gardener's conduct in the management of my covered garden, but content
myself with letting you know, that my little fields within doors, though by
their novelty they appear too extravagant to you to subsist even in a regular
imagination, are in the effect things that require no conjuration. Your
correspondent may depend upon it, that under a sashed roof, which lets in
the sun at all times, and the air as often as is convenient, he may have grass-
plots in the greatest perfection, if he will be at the pains to water, mow, and
roll them. Grass and herbs in general, the less they are exposed to the sun
and wind, the livelier is their verdure. They require only warmth and
moisture; and if you were to see my plots, your eye would soon confess,
that the bowling-green at Marybone[29] wears not half so bright a livery.
"The motto with which the gentleman has been pleased to furnish you, is so
very proper, and pleases me so well, that I design to have it set upon the
front of my green-house in letters of gold.
"I am, Sir, &c."

FOOTNOTES:
[24] See No. 124.
[25] Discourse.

[26] A writer in Notes and Queries (March 19, 1887) has pointed out that Luther
says in his "Colloquies" (1652), p. 90, "Our Lord commonly giveth riches to
such gross asses to whom He affordeth nothing else that is good."
[27] Chloe's reply is in No. 207.
[28] See Nos. 179 and 188.
[29] In 1728 we hear of persons arriving in London "from their country-houses
in Marylebone" (cf. No. 18). Marylebone Gardens, a favourite place of
entertainment, had in the centre a bowling-green, "112 paces one way, 88
another," where persons of quality often played.

No. 204. [Steele.
From Thursday, July 27, to Saturday, July 29,
1710.

----Gaudent prænomine molles
Auriculæ.——

Hor., 2 Sat. v. 32.

From my own Apartment, July 28.

any are the inconveniences which happen from the improper manner
M of address in common speech between persons of the same or of
different quality. Among these errors, there is none greater than that
of the impertinent use of title, and a paraphrastical way of saying "you." I
had the curiosity the other day to follow a crowd of people near
Billingsgate, who were conducting a passionate woman who sold fish to a
magistrate, in order to explain some words which were ill taken by one of
her own quality and profession in the public market. When she came to
make her defence, she was so very full of, "his Worship," and of, "if it
should please his Honour," that we could for some time hardly hear any
other apology she made for herself than that of atoning for the ill language
she had been accused of towards her neighbour by the great civilities she
paid to her judge. But this extravagance in her sense of doing honour, was
no more to be wondered at than that her many rings on each finger were
worn as instances of finery and dress. The vulgar may thus heap and huddle
terms of respect, and nothing better be expected from them; but for people
of rank to repeat appellatives insignificantly, is a folly not to be endured,
neither with regard to our times or our understanding. It is below the dignity
of speech to extend it with more words or phrases than are necessary to
explain ourselves with elegance: and it is, methinks, an instance of
ignorance, if not of servitude, to be redundant in such expressions.

I waited upon a man of quality some mornings ago: he happened to be
dressing; and his shoemaker fitting him, told him, that if his Lordship
would please to tread hard, or that if his Lordship would stamp a little, his
Lordship would find his Lordship's shoe will fit as easy as any piece of
work his Lordship should see in England. As soon as my lord was dressed,
a gentleman approached him with a very good air, and told him, he had an
affair which had long depended in the Lower Courts, which, through the
inadvertency of his ancestors on the one side, and the ill arts of their
adversaries on the other, could not possibly be settled according to the rules
of the Lower Courts: that therefore he designed to bring his cause before the
House of Lords next session, where he should be glad if his Lordship
should happen to be present; for he doubted not but his cause would be
approved by all men of justice and honour. In this place the word
"Lordship" was gracefully inserted, because it was applied to him in that
circumstance wherein his quality was the occasion of the discourse, and
wherein it was most useful to the one, and most honourable to the other.
This way is so far from being disrespectful to the honour of nobles, that it is
an expedient for using them with greater deference. I would not put
"Lordship" to a man's hat, gloves, wig, or cane; but to desire his Lordship's
favour, his Lordship's judgment, or his Lordship's patronage, is a manner of
speaking which expresses an alliance between his quality and his merit. It is
this knowledge which distinguished the discourse of the shoemaker from
that of the gentleman. The highest point of good-breeding, if any one can
hit it, is to show a very nice regard to your own dignity, and with that in
your heart express your value for the man above you.
But the silly humour to the contrary has so much prevailed, that the slavish
addition of title enervates discourse, and renders the application of it almost
ridiculous. We writers of diurnals are nearer in our styles to that of common
talk than any other writers, by which means we use words of respect
sometimes very unfortunately. The Post-Man,[30] who is one of the most
celebrated of our fraternity, fell into this misfortune yesterday in his
paragraph from Berlin of July 26. "Count Wartenberg," says he, "Great
Chamberlain, and Chief Minister of this Court, who on Monday last
accompanied the King of Prussia to Oranienburg, was taken so very ill, that
on Wednesday his life was despaired of; and we had a report, that his
Excellency was dead."

I humbly presume, that it flattens the narration, to say "his Excellency" in a
case which is common to all men; except you would infer what is not to be
inferred, to wit, that the author designed to say, "all wherein he excelled
others was departed from him."
Were distinctions used according to the rules of reason and sense, those
additions to men's names would be, as they were first intended, significant
of their worth, and not their persons; so that in some cases it might be
proper to say, "The man is dead, but his excellency will never die." It is,
methinks, very unjust to laugh at a Quaker, because he has taken up a
resolution to treat you with a word, the most expressive of complaisance
that can be thought of, and with an air of good-nature and charity calls you
friend. I say, it is very unjust to rally him for this term to a stranger, when
you yourselves, in all your phrases of distinction, confound phrases of
honour into no use at all.
Tom Courtly, who is the pink of courtesy, is an instance of how little
moment an undistinguishing application of sounds of honour are to those
who understand themselves. Tom never fails of paying his obeisance to
every man he sees, who has title or office to make him conspicuous; but his
deference is wholly given to outward considerations. I, who know him, can
tell within half an acre how much land one man has more than another by
Tom's bow to him. Title is all he knows of honour, and civility of
friendship: for this reason, because he cares for no man living, he is
religiously strict in performing what he calls his respects to you. To this end
he is very learned in pedigree, and will abate something in the ceremony of
his approaches to a man, if he is in any doubt about the bearing of his coat
of arms. What is the most pleasant of all his character is, that he acts with a
sort of integrity in these impertinences; and though he would not do any
man any solid kindness, he is wonderfully just and careful not to wrong his
quality. But as integrity is very scarce in the world, I cannot forbear having
respect for the impertinent: it is some virtue to be bound by anything. Tom
and I are upon very good terms for the respect he has for the house of
Bickerstaff. Though one cannot but laugh at his serious consideration of
things so little essential, one must have a value even for a frivolous good
conscience.

FOOTNOTES:

[30] See No. 155.

No. 205. [Fuller.[31]
From Saturday, July 29, to Tuesday, Aug. 1, 1710.

Νήπιοι, οὐδὲ ἴσασιν ὅσῳ πλέον ἥμισυ παντός,
Οὐδ' ὅσον ἐν μαλάχῃ τε καὶ ἀσφοδέλῳ μέγ' ὄνειαρ.

Hesiod, Works and Days, 20.

From my own Apartment, July 31.

ature has implanted in us two very strong desires, hunger for the
N preservation of the individual, and lust for the support of the species;
or, to speak more intelligibly, the former to continue our own persons,
and the latter to introduce others into the world. According as men behave
themselves with regard to these appetites, they are above or below the
beasts of the field, which are incited by them without choice or reflection.
But reasonable creatures correct these incentives, and improve them into
elegant motives of friendship and society. It is chiefly from this homely
foundation, that we are under the necessity of seeking for the agreeable
companion, and the honourable mistress. By this cultivation of art and
reason, our wants are made pleasures, and the gratification of our desires,
under proper restrictions, a work no way below our noblest faculties. The
wisest man may maintain his character, and yet consider in what manner he
shall best entertain his friend, or divert his mistress: nay, it is so far from
being a derogation to him, that he can in no other instances show so true a
taste of his life or his fortune. What concerns one of the above-mentioned
appetites, as it is elevated into love, I shall have abundant occasion to
discourse of before I have provided for the numberless crowd of damsels I
have proposed to take care of. The subject therefore of the present paper
shall be that part of society which owes its beginning to the common
necessity of hunger. When this is considered as the support of our being, we
may take in under the same head thirst also; otherwise when we are

pursuing the glutton, the drunkard may make his escape. The true choice of
our diet, and our companions at it, seems to consist in that which
contributes most to cheerfulness and refreshment: and these certainly are
best consulted by simplicity in the food, and sincerity in the company. By
this rule are in the first place excluded from pretence to happiness all meals
of state and ceremony, which are performed in dumb show and greedy
sullenness. At the boards of the great, they say, you shall have a number
attending with as good habits and countenances as the guests, which only
circumstance must destroy the whole pleasure of the repast: for if such
attendants are introduced for the dignity of their appearance, modest minds
are shocked by considering them as spectators, or else look upon them as
equals, for whose servitude they are in a kind of suffering. It may be here
added, that the sumptuous sideboard to an ingenuous eye has often more the
air of an altar than a table. The next absurd way of enjoying ourselves at
meals, is, where the bottle is plied without being called for, where humour
takes place of appetite, and the good company are too dull or too merry to
know any enjoyment in their senses.
Though this part of time is absolutely necessary to sustain life, it must be
also considered, that life itself is to the endless being of man but what a
meal is to this life, not valuable for itself, but for the purpose of it. If there
be any truth in this, the expense of many hours this way is somewhat
unaccountable; and placing much thought either in too great sumptuousness
and elegance in this matter, or wallowing in noise and riot at it, are both,
though not equally, unaccountable. I have often considered these different
people with very great attention, and always speak of them with the
distinction of the eaters and the swallowers. The eaters sacrifice all their
senses and understanding to this appetite: the swallowers hurry themselves
out of both, without pleasing this or any other appetite at all. The latter are
improved brutes, the former degenerated men. I have sometimes thought it
would not be improper to add to my dead and living men, persons in an
intermediate state of humanity, under the appellation of dozers. The dozers
are a sect, who, instead of keeping their appetites in subjection, live in
subjection to them; nay, they are so truly slaves to them, that they keep at
too great a distance ever to come into their presence. Within my own
acquaintance, I know those that I daresay have forgot that they ever were
hungry, and are no less utter strangers to thirst and weariness, who are
beholden to sauces for their food, and to their food for their weariness.

I have often wondered, considering the excellent and choice spirits that we
have among our divines, that they do not think of putting vicious habits into
a more contemptible and unlovely figure than they do at present. So many
men of wit and spirit as there are in sacred orders, have it in their power to
make the fashion of their side. The leaders in human society are more
effectually prevailed upon this way than can easily be imagined. I have
more than one in my thoughts at this time capable of doing this against all
the opposition of the most witty, as well as the most voluptuous. There may
possibly be more acceptable subjects, but sure there are none more useful. It
is visible, that though men's fortunes, circumstances, and pleasures give
them prepossessions too strong to regard any mention either of punishments
or rewards, they will listen to what makes them inconsiderable or mean in
the imaginations of others, and by degrees in their own.
It is certain such topics are to be touched upon in the light we mean, only by
men of the most consummate prudence, as well as excellent wit: for these
discourses are to be made, if made to run into example, before such as have
their thoughts more intent upon the propriety than the reason of the
discourse. What indeed leads me into this way of thinking, is, that the last
thing I read was a sermon of the learned Dr. South,[32] upon the Ways of
Pleasantness. This admirable discourse was made at court, where the
preacher was too wise a man not to believe; the greatest argument, in that
place, against the pleasures then in vogue, must be, that they lost greater
pleasures by prosecuting the course they were in. The charming discourse
has in it whatever wit and wisdom can put together. This gentleman has a
talent of making all his faculties bear to the great end of his hallowed
profession. Happy genius! he is the better man for being a wit. The best way
to praise this author is to quote him; and, I think, I may defy any man to say
a greater thing of him, or his ability, than that there are no paragraphs in the
whole discourse I speak of below these which follow.
After having recommended the satisfaction of the mind, and the pleasure of
conscience, he proceeds:
"An ennobling property of it is, that it is such a pleasure as never satiates or
wearies; for it properly affects the spirit, and a spirit feels no weariness, as
being privileged from the causes of it. But can the epicure say so of any of
the pleasures he so much dotes upon? Do they not expire while they satisfy,
and after a few minutes' refreshment determine in loathing and unquietness?

How short is the interval between a pleasure and a burden! How
undiscernible the transition from one to the other! Pleasure dwells no longer
upon the appetite than the necessities of nature, which are quickly and
easily provided for; and then all that follows is a load and an oppression.
Every morsel to a satisfied hunger is only a new labour to a tired digestion.
Every draught to him that has quenched his thirst is but a further quenching
of nature, and a provision for rheum and diseases, a drowning of the
quickness and activity of the spirits.
"He that prolongs his meals, and sacrifices his time, as well as his other
conveniences, to his luxury, how quickly does he outsit his pleasure! And
then, how is all the following time bestowed upon ceremony and surfeit!
Till at length, after a long fatigue of eating, and drinking, and babbling, he
concludes the great work of dining genteelly, and so makes a shift to rise
from table, that he may lie down upon his bed; where, after he has slept
himself into some use of himself, by much ado he staggers to his table
again, and there acts over the same brutish scene: so that he passes his
whole life in a dozed condition, between sleeping and waking, with a kind
of drowsiness and confusion upon his senses, which, what pleasure it can
be, is hard to conceive. All that is of it dwells upon the tip of his tongue,
and within the compass of his palate. A worthy prize for a man to purchase
with the loss of his time, his reason, and himself!"

FOOTNOTES:
[31] Samuel Partiger Fuller was M.P. for Petersfield from 1715 to 1722. Steele's
letters show that he was an intimate friend of Fuller's in 1716-17; and in
February 1716, when Steele spoke in the House of Commons on behalf of the
noblemen condemned for the part they had taken in the rebellion of 1715, he was
seconded by Fuller. The following passage from Steele's Theatre, No. 26, March
29, 1720, is the authority for attributing this paper to young Fuller, then a secret
correspondent:
"I can hardly conceive a more laudable act, than declaring an abhorrence of so
fashionable a crime [viz., duelling], which weakness, cowardice, and an
impatience of the reproach of fools, have brought upon reasonable men. This
sort of behaviour cannot proceed but from a true and undaunted courage; and I
cannot but have in great veneration a generous youth, who, in public, declared
his assent and concurrence to this law, by saying, that in spite of the prevailing
custom, he triumphed more in being a second to prevent, than he should have
done in being one to promote murder. A speech thus ingenuous could come only

from a heart that scorned reserves, in compliance to falsehood, to do injury to
truth.
"This was true greatness of mind; and the man who did it, could not possibly do
it for his own sake, but must be conscious of a courage sufficient for his own
defence, who could thus candidly, at this time of life, rescue other men from the
necessity of bearing contempt, or doing an ill action.
"The mind usually exerts itself in all its faculties with an equal pace towards
maturity; and this gentleman, who at the age of sixteen could form such pleasant
pictures of the false and little ambitions of low spirits, as Mr. Fuller did, to
whom, when a boy, we owe, with several other excellent pieces, "The
Vainglorious Glutton," when a secret correspondent of the Tatler: I say, such a
one might easily, as he proceeded in human life, arrive at this superior strength
of mind at four-and-twenty. The soul that labours against prejudice, and follows
reason, ripens in her capacities and grows in her talents at the same time. As
therefore courage is what a man attains by thought, as much as he improves his
wit by study, it is only from want of opportunities to call the one or the other
forth, and draw the respective qualities into habit, if ever a man of sense is a
coward."
[32] See Nos. 61 and 211. In the Guardian (No. 135), Addison quotes from
South a passage which, he says, "cannot but make the man's heart burn within
him who reads it with due attention."

No. 206. [Steele.
From Tuesday, Aug. 1, to Thursday, Aug. 3, 1710.
Metiri se quemque suo modulo ac pede verum est.
Hor., 1 Ep. vii. 98.

From my own Apartment, Aug. 2.

he general purposes of men in the conduct of their lives (I mean with
T relation to this life only), end in gaining either the affection or the
esteem of those with whom they converse. Esteem makes a man
powerful in business, and affection desirable in conversation; which is
certainly the reason that very agreeable men fail of their point in the world,
and those who are by no means such arrive at it with much ease. If it be
visible in a man's carriage that he has a strong passion to please, no one is
much at a loss how to keep measures with him, because there is always a
balance in people's hands to make up with him, by giving him what he still
wants in exchange for what you think fit to deny him. Such a person asks
with diffidence, and ever leaves room for denial by that softness of his
complexion. At the same time he himself is capable of denying nothing,
even what he is not able to perform. The other sort of man who courts
esteem, having a quite different view, has as different a behaviour, and acts
as much by the dictates of his reason, as the other does by the impulse of his
inclination. You must pay for everything you have of him. He considers
mankind as a people in commerce, and never gives out of himself what he
is sure will not come in with interest from another. All his words and
actions tend to the advancement of his reputation and of his fortune, toward
which he makes hourly progress, because he lavishes no part of his good-
will upon such as do not make some advances to merit it. The man who
values affection sometimes becomes popular, he who aims at esteem
seldom fails of growing rich.
Thus far we have looked at these different men as persons who endeavour
to be valued and beloved from design or ambition; but they appear in quite

another figure, when you observe the men who are agreeable and venerable
from the force of their natural inclinations. We affect the company of him
who has least regard of himself in his carriage, who throws himself into
unguarded gaiety, voluntary mirth, and general good-humour; who has
nothing in his head but the present hour, and seems to have all his interests
and passions gratified, if every man else in the room is as unconcerned as
himself. This man usually has no quality or character among his
companions; let him be born of whom he will, have what great qualities he
please, let him be capable of assuming for a moment what figure he pleases,
he still dwells in the imagination of all who know him but as Jack Such-a-
One. This makes Jack brighten up the room wherever he enters, and change
the severity of the company into that gaiety and good-humour into which
his conversation generally leads them. It is not unpleasant to observe even
this sort of creature go out of his character, to check himself sometimes for
his familiarities, and pretend so awkwardly at procuring to himself more
esteem than he finds he meets with. I was the other day walking with Jack
Gainly towards Lincoln's Inn Walks. We met a fellow who is a lower officer
where Jack is in the direction. Jack cries to him, so, "How is it, Mr. ——?"
He answers, "Mr. Gainly, I am glad to see you well." This expression of
equality gave my friend a pang, which appeared in a flush of his
countenance. "Prithee, Jack," says I, "do not be angry at the man; for do
what you will, the man can only love you: be contented with the image the
man has of thee; for if thou aimest at any other, it must be hatred or
contempt." I went on, and told him, "Look'ee, Jack, I have heard thee
sometimes talk like an oracle for half-an-hour, with the sentiments of a
Roman, the closeness of a school-man, and the integrity of a divine; but
then, Jack, while I admired thee, it was upon topics which did not concern
thyself, and where the greatness of the subject (added to thy being
personally unconcerned in it) created all that was great in thy discourse." I
did not mind his being a little out of humour, but comforted him, by giving
him several instances of men of our acquaintance, who had no one quality
in any eminence, that were much more esteemed than he was with very
many: but the thing is, if your character is to give pleasure, men will
consider you only in that light, and not in those acts which turn to esteem
and veneration.
When I think of Jack Gainly, I cannot but reflect also upon his sister Gatty.
She is young, witty, pleasant, innocent. This is her natural character; but

when she observes any one admired for what they call a fine woman, she is
all the next day womanly, prudent, observing, and virtuous. She is every
moment asked in her prudential behaviour, whether she is not well? Upon
which she as often answers in a fret, "Do people think one must be always
romping, always a Jack-pudding?" I never fail to inquire of her, if my Lady
Such-a-One, that awful beauty, was not at the play last night? She knows
the connection between that question and her change of humour, and says,
"It would be very well, if some people would examine into themselves as
much as they do into others;" or, "Sure there is nothing in the world so
ridiculous as an amorous old man."
As I was saying, there is a class which every man is in by his post in nature,
from which it is impossible for him to withdraw to another, and become it.
Therefore it is necessary that each should be contented with it, and not
endeavour at any progress out of that tract. To follow nature, is the only
agreeable course; which is what I would fain inculcate to those jarring
companions, Flavia and Lucia. They are mother and daughter. Flavia, who
is the mamma, has all the charms and desires of youth still about her, and
not much turned of thirty: Lucia is blooming and amorous, and but a little
above fifteen. The mother looks very much younger than she is, the girl
very much older. If it were possible to fix the girl to her sick-bed, and
preserve the portion (the use of which the mother partakes), the good
widow Flavia would certainly do it. But for fear of Lucia's escape, the
mother is forced to be constantly attended with a rival, that explains her
age, and draws off the eyes of her admirers. The jest is, they can never be
together in strangers' company, but Lucy is eternally reprimanded for
something very particular in her behaviour; for which she has the malice to
say, she hopes she shall always obey her parents. She carried her passion
and jealousy to that height the other day, that coming suddenly into the
room, and surprising Colonel Lofty speaking rapture on one knee to her
mother, she clapped down by him and asked her blessing.
I do not know whether it is so proper to tell family occurrences of this
nature; but we every day see the same thing happen in the public
conversation in the world. Men cannot be contented with what is laudable,
but they must have all that is laudable. This affectation is what destroys the
familiar man into pretences to take state upon him, and the contrary
character to the folly of aiming at being winning and complaisant. But in

these cases men may easily lay aside what they are, but can never arrive at
what they are not.
As to the pursuits after affection and esteem, the fair sex are happy in this
particular, that with them the one is much more nearly related to the other
than in men. The love of a woman is inseparable from some esteem of her;
and as she is naturally the object of affection, the woman who has your
esteem has also some degree of your love.[33] A man that dotes on a woman
for her beauty, will whisper his friend, "That creature has a great deal of wit
when you are well acquainted with her." And if you examine the bottom of
your esteem for a woman, you will find you have a greater opinion of her
beauty than anybody else. As to us men, I design to pass most of my time
with the facetious Harry Bickerstaff; but William Bickerstaff, the most
prudent man of our family, shall be my executor.

FOOTNOTES:
[33] "Inseparable always from his passion is the exalted admiration he feels; and
his love is the very flower of his respect" (Forster's Essay on Steele).

No. 207. [Steele.
From Thursday, Aug. 3, to Saturday, Aug. 5, 1710.
From my own Apartment, Aug. 4.

aving yesterday morning received a paper of Latin verses, written with
H much elegance in honour of these my papers, and being informed at
the same time that they were composed by a youth under age, I read
them with much delight, as an instance of his improvement. There is not a
greater pleasure to old age, than seeing young people entertain themselves
in such a manner as that we can partake of their enjoyments. On such
occasions we flatter ourselves that we are not quite laid aside in the world,
but that we are either used with gratitude for what we were, or honoured for
what we are. A well-inclined young man, and whose good-breeding is
founded upon the principles of nature and virtue, must needs take delight in
being agreeable to his elders, as we are truly delighted when we are not the
jest of them. When I say this, I must confess I cannot but think it a very
lamentable thing that there should be a necessity for making that a rule of
life, which should be, methinks, a mere instinct of nature. If reflection upon
a man in poverty, whom we once knew in riches, is an argument of
commiseration with generous minds; sure old age, which is a decay from
that vigour which the young possess, and must certainly (if not prevented
against their will) arrive at, should be more forcibly the object of that
reverence which honest spirits are inclined to from a sense of being
themselves liable to what they observe has already overtaken others.
My three nephews, whom in June last was twelvemonth I disposed of
according to their several capacities and inclinations, the first to the
University, the second to a merchant, and the third to a woman of quality as
her page, by my invitation dined with me to-day. It is my custom often,
when I have a mind to give myself a more than ordinary cheerfulness, to
invite a certain young gentlewoman of our neighbourhood to make one of
the company. She did me that favour this day. The presence of a beautiful
woman of honour, to minds which are not trivially disposed, displays an

alacrity which is not to be communicated by any other object. It was not
unpleasant to me to look into her thoughts of the company she was in. She
smiled at the party of pleasure I had thought of for her, which was
composed of an old man and three boys. My scholar, my citizen, and myself
were very soon neglected; and the young courtier, by the bow he made to
her at her entrance, engaged her observation without a rival. I observed the
Oxonian not a little discomposed at this preference, while the trader kept his
eye upon his uncle. My nephew Will had a thousand secret resolutions to
break in upon the discourse of his younger brother, who gave my fair
companion a full account of the fashion, and what was reckoned most
becoming to this complexion, and what sort of habit appeared best upon the
other shape. He proceeded to acquaint her, who of quality was well or sick
within the bills of mortality, and named very familiarly all his lady's
acquaintance, not forgetting her very words when he spoke of their
characters. Besides all this, he had a road of flattery; and upon her inquiring
what sort of woman Lady Lovely was in her person, "Really, madam," says
the jackanapes, "she is exactly of your height and shape; but as you are fair,
she is a brown woman." There was no enduring that this fop should
outshine us all at this unmerciful rate, therefore I thought fit to talk to my
young scholar concerning his studies; and because I would throw his
learning into present service, I desired him to repeat to me the translation he
had made of some tender verses in Theocritus. He did so, with an air of
elegance peculiar to the college to which I sent him. I made some
exceptions to the turn of the phrases, which he defended with much
modesty, as believing in that place the matter was rather to consult the
softness of a swain's passion, than the strength of his expressions. It soon
appeared that Will had outstripped his brother in the opinion of our young
lady. A little poetry to one who is bred a scholar has the same effect that a
good carriage of his person has on one who is to live in courts. The favour
of women is so natural a passion, that I envied both the boys their success
in the approbation of my guest; and I thought the only person invulnerable
was my young trader. During the whole meal, I could observe in the
children a mutual contempt and scorn of each other, arising from their
different way of life and education, and took that occasion to advertise them
of such growing distastes, which might mislead them in their future life,
and disappoint their friends, as well as themselves, of the advantages which
might be expected from the diversity of their professions and interests.

The prejudices which are growing up between these brothers from the
different ways of education, are what create the most fatal
misunderstandings in life. But all distinctions of disparagement merely
from our circumstances, are such as will not bear the examination of reason.
The courtier, the trader, and the scholar should all have an equal pretension
to the denomination of a gentleman. That tradesman who deals with me in a
commodity which I do not understand with uprightness, has much more
right to that character, than the courtier who gives me false hopes, or the
scholar who laughs at my ignorance.
The appellation of gentleman is never to be affixed to a man's
circumstances, but to his behaviour in them. For this reason I shall ever, as
far as I am able, give my nephews such impressions as shall make them
value themselves rather as they are useful to others, than as they are
conscious of merit in themselves. There are no qualities from which we
ought to pretend to the esteem of others, but such as render us serviceable to
them; for free men have no superiors but benefactors. I was going on like a
true old fellow to this purpose to my guests, when I received the following
epistle:

"Sir,
have yours,[34] with notice of a benefit ticket of £400 per annum, both
"I enclosed by Mr. Elliot, who had my numbers for that purpose. Your
philosophic advice came very seasonably to me with that good
fortune; but I must be so sincere with you as to acknowledge, I owe my
present moderation more to my own folly than your wisdom. You will think
this strange till I inform you, that I had fixed my thoughts upon the £1000 a
year, and had with that expectation laid down so many agreeable plans for
my behaviour towards my new lovers and old friends, that I have received
this favour of fortune with an air of disappointment. This is interpreted by
all who know not the springs of my heart as a wonderful piece of humility. I
hope my present state of mind will grow into that; but I confess my conduct
to be now owing to another cause. However, I know you will approve my
taking hold even of imperfections to find my way towards virtue, which is

so feeble in us at the best, that we are often beholden to our faults for the
first appearances of it. I am,
"Sir,
"Your most humble Servant,
"Chloe.
"

FOOTNOTES:
[34] See No. 203.

No. 208. [Steele.
From Saturday, Aug. 5, to Tuesday, Aug. 8, 1710.
Si dixeris "æstuo," sudat.——
Juv., Sat. iii. 103.

From my own Apartment Aug. 7.

n old acquaintance who met me this morning seemed overjoyed to see
A me, and told me, I looked as well as he had known me do these forty
years: but, continued he, "not quite the man you were when we visited
together at Lady Brightly's. Oh, Isaac! those days are over. Do you think
there are any such fine creatures now living as we then conversed with?" He
went on with a thousand incoherent circumstances, which, in his
imagination, must needs please me; but they had the quite contrary effect.
The flattery with which he began, in telling me how well I wore, was not
disagreeable; but his indiscreet mention of a set of acquaintances we had
outlived, recalled ten thousand things to my memory, which made me
reflect upon my present condition with regret. Had he indeed been so kind
as, after a long absence, to felicitate me upon an indolent and easy old age,
and mentioned how much he and I had to thank for, who at our time of day
could walk firmly, eat heartily, and converse cheerfully, he had kept up my
pleasure in myself. But of all mankind there are none so shocking as these
injudicious civil people. They ordinarily begin upon something that they
know must be a satisfaction; but then, for fear of the imputation of flattery,
they follow it with the last thing in the world of which you would be
reminded. It is this that perplexes civil persons. The reason that there is
such a general outcry amongst us against flatterers, is, that there are so very
few good ones. It is the nicest art in this life, and is a part of eloquence
which does not want the preparation that is necessary to all other parts of it,
that your audience should be your well-wishers: for praise from an enemy is
the most pleasing of all commendations.

It is generally to be observed, that the person most agreeable to a man for a
constancy is he that has no shining qualities, but is a certain degree above
great imperfections, whom he can live with as his inferior, and who will
either overlook or not observe his little defects. Such an easy companion as
this, either now and then throws out a little flattery, or lets a man silently
flatter himself in his superiority to him. If you take notice, there is hardly a
rich man in the world who has not such a led friend[35] of small
consideration, who is a darling for his insignificancy. It is a great ease to
have one in our own shape a species below us, and who, without being
listed in our service, is by nature of our retinue. These dependants are of
excellent use on a rainy day, or when a man has not a mind to dress or to
exclude solitude, when one has neither a mind to that or to company. There
are of this good-natured order who are so kind as to divide themselves, and
do these good offices to many. Five or six of them visit a whole quarter of
the town, and exclude the spleen without fees from the families they
frequent. If they do not prescribe physic, they can be company when you
take it. Very great benefactors to the rich, or those whom they call people at
their ease, are your persons of no consequence. I have known some of them,
by the help of a little cunning, make delicious flatterers. They know the
course of the town and the general characters of persons: by this means they
will sometimes tell the most agreeable falsehoods imaginable. They will
acquaint you, that such a one of a quite contrary party said, that though you
were engaged in different interests, yet he had the greatest respect for your
good sense and address. When one of these has a little cunning, he passes
his time in the utmost satisfaction to himself and his friends: for his position
is never to report or speak a displeasing thing to his friend. As for letting
him go on in an error, he knows advice against them is the office of persons
of greater talents and less discretion.
The Latin word for a flatterer (assentator) implies no more than a person
that barely consents; and indeed such a one, if a man were able to purchase
or maintain him, cannot be bought too dear. Such a one never contradicts
you, but gains upon you, not by a fulsome way of commending you in
broad terms, but liking whatever you propose or utter; at the same time is
ready to beg your pardon, and gainsay you, if you chance to speak ill of
yourself. An old lady is very seldom without such a companion as this, who
can recite the names of all her lovers, and the matches refused by her in the
days when she minded such vanities (as she is pleased to call them, though

she so much approves the mention of them). It is to be noted, that a
woman's flatterer is generally older than herself, her years serving at once to
recommend her patroness's age, and to add weight to her complaisance in
all other particulars.
We gentlemen of small fortunes are extremely necessitous in this particular.
I have indeed one who smokes with me often; but his parts are so low, that
all the incense he does me is to fill his pipe with me, and to be out at just as
many whiffs as I take. This is all the praise or assent that he is capable of,
yet there are more hours when I would rather be in his company than that of
the brightest man I know. It would be a hard matter to give an account of
this inclination to be flattered; but if we go to the bottom of it, we shall find
that the pleasure in it is something like that of receiving money which lay
out. Every man thinks he has an estate of reputation, and is glad to see one
that will bring any of it home to him: it is no matter how dirty a bag it is
conveyed to him in, or by how clownish a messenger, so the money is good.
All that we want to be pleased with flattery, is to believe that the man is
sincere who gives it us. It is by this one accident that absurd creatures often
outrun the more skilful in this art. Their want of ability is here an
advantage, and their bluntness, as it is the seeming effect of sincerity, is the
best cover to artifice.
Terence introduces a flatterer talking to a coxcomb whom he cheats out of a
livelihood, and a third person on the stage makes on him this pleasant
remark, "This fellow has an art of making fools madmen."[36] The love of
flattery is indeed sometimes the weakness of a great mind; but you see it
also in persons who otherwise discover no manner of relish of anything
above mere sensuality. These latter it sometimes improves, but always
debases the former. A fool is in himself the object of pity till he is flattered.
By the force of that his stupidity is raised into affectation, and he becomes
of dignity enough to be ridiculous. I remember a droll, that upon one's
saying, "The times are so ticklish that there must great care be taken what
one says in conversation," answered with an air of surliness and honesty, "If
people will be free, let them be so in the manner that I am, who never abuse
a man but to his face." He had no reputation for saying dangerous truths;
therefore when it was repeated, "You abuse a man but to his face?" "Yes,"
says he, "I flatter him."

It is indeed the greatest of injuries to flatter any but the unhappy, or such as
are displeased with themselves for some infirmity. In this latter case we
have a member of our club, that when Sir Jeffery falls asleep, wakens him
with snoring. This makes Sir Jeffery hold up for some moments the longer,
to see there are men younger than himself among us who are more lethargic
than he is.
When flattery is practised upon any other consideration, it is the most abject
thing in nature; nay, I cannot think of any character below the flatterer,
except he that envies him. You meet with fellows prepared to be as mean as
possible in their condescensions and expressions; but they want persons and
talents to rise up to such a baseness. As a coxcomb is a fool of parts, so is a
flatterer a knave of parts.
The best of this order that I know, is one who disguises it under a spirit of
contradiction or reproof. He told an errant driveller the other day, that he
did not care for being in company with him, because he heard he turned his
absent friends into ridicule. And upon Lady Autumn's[37] disputing with him
about something that happened at the Revolution, he replied with a very
angry tone, "Pray, madam, give me leave to know more of a thing in which
I was actually concerned, than you, who were then in your nurse's arms."

FOOTNOTES:
[35] A hanger-on. As Mr. Dobson points out, Thackeray gives the title of "led-
captain" to Lord Steyne's toady and trencher-man, Mr. Wagg ("Vanity Fair,"
chap. xxi.).
[36] "Eunuchus," act ii. sc. 2, l. 23.
[37] See Nos. 36 and 140.

No. 209. [Steele.
From Tuesday, Aug. 8, to Thursday, Aug. 10, 1710.
From my own Apartment, Aug. 9.

noble painter, who has an ambition to draw a history-piece, has desired
A of me to give him a subject on which he may show the utmost force of
his art and genius. For this purpose I have pitched upon that
remarkable incident between Alexander the Great and his physician. This
Prince, in the midst of his conquests in Persia, was seized by a violent
fever; and according to the account we have of his vast mind, his thoughts
were more employed about his recovery as it regarded the war, than as it
concerned his own life. He professed, a slow method was worse than death
to him, because it was what he more dreaded, an interruption of his glory.
He desired a dangerous, so it might be a speedy remedy. During this
impatience of the King, it is well known that Darius had offered an
immense sum to any who should take away his life. But Philippus, the most
esteemed and most knowing of his physicians, promised, that within three
days' time he would prepare a medicine for him which should restore him
more expeditiously than could be imagined. Immediately after this
engagement, Alexander receives a letter from the most considerable of his
captains, with intelligence, that Darius had bribed Philippus to poison him.
Every circumstance imaginable favoured this suspicion; but this monarch,
who did nothing but in an extraordinary manner, concealed the letter; and
while the medicine was preparing, spent all his thoughts upon his behaviour
in this important incident. From his long soliloquy he came to this
resolution: "Alexander must not lie here alive to be oppressed by his enemy.
I will not believe my physician guilty; or, I will perish rather by his guilt
than my own diffidence."
At the appointed hour, Philippus enters with the potion. One cannot but
form to one's self on occasion the encounter of their eyes, the resolution in
those of the patient, and the benevolence in the countenance of the
physician. The hero raised himself in his bed, and holding the letter in one

hand, and the potion in the other, drank the medicine. It will exercise my
friend's pencil and brain to place this action in its proper beauty. A prince
observing the features of a suspected traitor after having drank the poison
he offered him, is a circumstance so full of passion, that it will require the
highest strength of his imagination to conceive it, much more to express it.
But as painting is eloquence and poetry in mechanism, I shall raise his
ideas, by reading with him the finest draughts of the passions concerned in
this circumstance from the most excellent poets and orators. The confidence
which Alexander assumes from the air of Philippus's face as he is reading
his accusation, and the generous disdain which is to rise in the features of a
falsely accused man, are principally to be regarded. In this particular he
must heighten his thoughts, by reflecting, that he is not drawing only an
innocent man traduced, but a man zealously affected to his person and
safety, full of resentment for being thought false. How shall we contrive to
express the highest admiration mingled with disdain? How shall we in
strokes of a pencil say what Philippus did to his Prince on this occasion?
"Sir, my life never depended on yours more than it does now. Without
knowing this secret, I prepared the potion, which you have taken as what
concerned Philippus no less than Alexander; and there is nothing new in
this adventure, but that it makes me still more admire the generosity and
confidence of my master." Alexander took him by the hand, and said,
"Philippus, I am confident you had rather I had any other way to have
manifested the faith I have in you, than a case which so nearly concerns me:
and in gratitude I now assure you, I am anxious for the effect of your
medicine, more for your sake than my own."[38]
My painter is employed by a man of sense and wealth to furnish him a
gallery, and I shall join with my friend in the designing part. It is the great
use of pictures to raise in our minds either agreeable ideas of our absent
friends, or high images of eminent personages. But the latter design is,
methinks, carried on in a very improper way; for to fill a room full of battle-
pieces, pompous histories of sieges, and a tall hero alone in a crowd of
insignificant figures about him, is of no consequence to private men. But to
place before our eyes great and illustrious men in those parts and
circumstances of life wherein their behaviour may have an effect upon our
minds, as being such as we partake with them merely as they were men:
such as these, I say, may be just and useful ornaments of an elegant
apartment. In this collection therefore that we are making, we will not have

the battles, but the sentiments of Alexander. The affair we were just now
talking of, has circumstances of the highest nature, and yet their grandeur
has little to do with his fortune. If by observing such a piece as that of his
taking a bowl of poison with so much magnanimity, a man, the next time he
has a fit of the spleen, is less froward to his friend or his servants; thus far is
some improvement.
I have frequently thought, that if we had many draughts which were
historical of certain passions, and had the true figure of the great men we
see transported by them, it would be of the most solid advantage
imaginable. To consider this mighty man on one occasion administer to the
wants of a poor soldier, benumbed with cold, with the greatest humanity; at
another, barbarously stabbing a faithful officer: at one time, so generously
chaste and virtuous as to give his captive Statira her liberty; at another,
burning a town at the instigation of Thais—this sort of changes in the same
person are what would be more beneficial lessons of morality than the
several revolutions in a great man's fortune. There are but one or two in an
age to whom the pompous incidents of his life can be exemplary; but I or
any man may be as sick, as good-natured, as compassionate, and as angry
as Alexander the Great. My purpose in all this chat is, that so excellent a
furniture may not for the future have so romantic a turn, but allude to
incidents which come within the fortunes of the ordinary race of men. I do
not know but it is by the force of this senseless custom that people are
drawn in postures they would not for half they are worth be surprised in.
The unparalleled fierceness of some rural squires drawn in red, or in
armour, who never dreamed to destroy anything above a fox, is a common
and ordinary offence of this kind. But I shall give an account of our whole
gallery on another occasion.

FOOTNOTES:
[38] Q. Curtius, "Hist.," iii. 6, &c.

No. 210. [Steele.
From Thursday, Aug. 10, to Saturday, Aug. 12,
1710.
Sheer Lane, Aug. 10.

did myself the honour this day to make a visit to a lady of quality, who is
I one of those who are ever railing at the vices of the age, but mean only
one vice, because it is the only vice they are not guilty of. She went so
far as to fall foul on a young woman who has had imputations; but whether
they were just or not, no one knows but herself. However that is, she is in
her present behaviour modest, humble, pious, and discreet. I thought it
became me to bring this censorious lady to reason, and let her see she was a
much more vicious woman than the person she spoke of.
"Madam," said I, "you are very severe to this poor young woman, for a
trespass which I believe Heaven has forgiven her, and for which you see she
is for ever out of countenance." "Nay, Mr. Bickerstaff," she interrupted, "if
you at this time of day contradict people of virtue, and stand up for ill
women—" "No, no, madam," said I, "not so fast; she is reclaimed, and I
fear you never will be. Nay, nay, madam, do not be in a passion, but let me
tell you what you are. You are indeed as good as your neighbours, but that
is being very bad. You are a woman at the head of a family, and lead a
perfect town lady's life. You go on your own way, and consult nothing but
your glass. What imperfections indeed you see there, you immediately
mend as fast as you can. You may do the same by the faults I tell you of, for
they are much more in your power to correct.
"You are to know, then, that you visiting ladies, that carry your virtue from
house to house with so much prattle in each other's applause, and triumph
over other people's faults, I grant you have but the speculation of vice in
your own conversations, but promote the practice of it in all others you
have to do with.

"As for you, madam, your time passes away in dressing, eating, sleeping,
and praying. When you rise in a morning, I grant you an hour spent very
well; but you come out to dress in so froward a humour, that the poor girl
who attends you, curses her very being in that she is your servant, for the
peevish things you say to her; when this poor creature is put into a way, that
good or evil are regarded but as they relieve her from the hours she has and
must pass with you. The next you have to do with is your coachman and
footmen. They convey your ladyship to church. While you are praying
there, they are cursing, swearing, and drinking in an alehouse. During the
time also which your ladyship sets apart for heaven, you are to know, that
your cook is swearing and fretting in preparation for your dinner. Soon after
your meal you make visits, and the whole world that belongs to you speaks
all the ill of you which you are repeating of others. You see, madam,
whatever way you go, all about you are in a very broad one. The morality of
these people it is your proper business to inquire into; and till you reform
them, you had best let your equals alone; otherwise, if I allow you you are
not vicious, you must allow me you are not virtuous."
I took my leave, and received at my coming home the following letter:

"Mr. Bickerstaff,
have lived a pure and undefiled virgin these twenty-seven years; and I
"I assure you, 'tis with great grief and sorrow of heart I tell you, that I
become weary and impatient of the derision of the gigglers of our sex,
who call me old maid, and tell me I shall lead apes.[39] If you are truly a
patron of the distressed, and an adept in astrology, you will advise whether I
shall or ought to be prevailed upon by the impertinencies of my own sex, to
give way to the importunities of yours. I assure you, I am surrounded with
both, though at present a forlorn.
"I am, &c."
I must defer my answer to this lady out of a point of chronology. She says,
she has been twenty-seven years a maid; but I fear, according to a common
error, she dates her virginity from her birth, which is a very erroneous
method; for a woman of twenty is no more to be thought chaste so many

years, than a man of that age can be said to have been so long valiant. We
must not allow people the favour of a virtue till they have been under the
temptation to the contrary. A woman is not a maid till her birthday, as we
call it, of her fifteenth year. My plaintiff is therefore desired to inform me,
whether she is at present in her twenty-eighth or forty-third year, and she
shall be despatched accordingly.[40]

St. James's Coffee-house, Aug. 11.[41]

merchant came hither this morning, and read a letter from a
A correspondent of his at Milan. It was dated of the 7th instant, N.S. The
following is an abstract of it: On the 25th of the last month, five
thousand men were on their march in the Lampourdan, under the command
of General Wesell, having received orders from his Catholic Majesty to join
him in his camp with all possible expedition. The Duke of Anjou soon had
intelligence of their motion, and took a resolution to decamp, in order to
intercept them, within a day's march of our army. The King of Spain was
apprehensive the enemy might make such a movement, and commanded
General Stanhope[42] with a body of horse, consisting of fourteen
squadrons, to observe their course, and prevent their passage over the rivers
Segre and Noguera between Lerida and Balaguer. It happened to be the first
day that officer had appeared abroad after a dangerous and violent fever;
but he received the King's commands on this occasion with a joy which
surmounted his present weakness, and on the 27th of last month came up
with the enemy on the plains of Balaguer. The Duke of Anjou's rear-guard
consisting of twenty-six squadrons, that general sent intelligence of their
posture to the King, and desired his Majesty's orders to attack them. During
the time which he waited for his instructions, he made his disposition for
the charge, which was to divide themselves into three bodies; one to be
commanded by himself in the centre, a body on the right by Count Maurice
of Nassau, and the third on the left by the Earl of Rochford.[43] Upon the
receipt of his Majesty's direction to attack the enemy, the general himself
charged with the utmost vigour and resolution, while the Earl of Rochford
and Count Maurice extended themselves on his right and left, to prevent the
advantage the enemy might make of the superiority of their numbers. What
appears to have misled the enemy's general in this affair was, that it was not

supposed practicable that the confederates would attack him till they had
received a reinforcement. For this reason he pursued his march without
facing about, till we were actually coming on to engagement. General
Stanhope's disposition made it impracticable to do it at that time, Count
Maurice and the Earl of Rochford attacking them in the instant in which
they were forming themselves. The charge was made with the greatest
gallantry, and the enemy very soon put into so great disorder, that their
whole cavalry were commanded to support their rear-guard. Upon the
advance of this reinforcement, all the horse of the King of Spain were come
up to sustain General Stanhope, insomuch that the battle improved to a
general engagement of the cavalry of both armies. After a warm dispute for
some time, it ended in the utter defeat of all the Duke of Anjou's horse.
Upon the despatch of these advices, that Prince was retiring towards Lerida.
We have no account of any considerable loss on our side, except that both
those heroic youths, the Earl of Rochford and Count Nassau, fell in this
action. They were, you know, both sons of persons who had a great place in
the confidence of your late King William; and I doubt not but their deaths
will endear their families, which were ennobled by him, in your nation.
General Stanhope has been reported by the enemy dead of his wounds; but
he received only a slight contusion on the shoulder.
"P.S.—We acknowledge you here a mighty brave people; but you are said to
love quarrelling so well, that you cannot be quiet at home. The favourers of
the House of Bourbon among us affirm, that this Stanhope, who could as it
were get out of his sick-bed to fight against their King of Spain, must be of
the anti-monarchical party."

FOOTNOTES:
[39] Lady Strafford, writing in 1712, says: "Sis Betty ... hopes you'll provide her
a husband against she comes, for she begins to be in fears of leading apes in
hell" ("Wentworth Papers," 285).
[40] See reply in No. 212.
[41] The fifth paper of the first volume of the Examiner is a critique on this
article, with a comparison of the account of the same events given in the
Gazette.
"We too are sorry," says the writer, "for the loss of the Earl of Rochford; but I am
afraid Isaac Bickerstaff, who now compliments him with the title of 'heroic

youth,' has forgot the Tatler of Tun, Gun, and Pistol." This seems to allude to No.
24.
In the conclusion of the paper, Steele is reproached for meddling with matters of
State, and warned in a contemptuous manner, with a reference, no doubt, to his
being gazetteer, &c., to take care of himself. Arguments of a different kind, it is
said, were made use of about this time, to detach Steele from his party, equally
in vain.
[42] James Stanhope, who became Secretary of State on the accession of George
I., and Earl Stanhope in 1718, had been appointed commander-in-chief of the
British forces in Spain in 1708. He died in 1721.
[43] William, second Earl of Rochford, brigadier-general, was thirty-six years of
age when he was killed at the battle of Almenara.

No. 211. [Steele.
From Saturday, Aug. 12, to Tuesday, Aug. 15, 1710.
----Nequeo monstrare et sentio tantum.
Juv., Sat. vii. 56.

Sunday, Aug. 13.

f there were no other consequence of it, but barely that human creatures
I on this day assemble themselves before their Creator, without regard to
their usual employments, their minds at leisure from the cares of this life,
and their bodies adorned with the best attire they can bestow on them; I say,
were this mere outward celebration of a Sabbath all that is expected from
men, even that were a laudable distinction, and a purpose worthy the human
nature. But when there is added to it the sublime pleasure of devotion, our
being is exalted above itself; and he who spends a seventh day in the
contemplation of the next life, will not easily fall into the corruptions of this
in the other six. They who never admit thoughts of this kind into their
imagination, lose higher and sweeter satisfactions than can be raised by any
other entertainment. The most illiterate man who is touched with devotion,
and uses frequent exercises of it, contracts a certain greatness of mind,
mingled with a noble simplicity, that raises him above those of the same
condition; and there is an indelible mark of goodness in those who sincerely
possess it. It is hardly possible it should be otherwise; for the fervours of a
pious mind will naturally contract such an earnestness and attention towards
a better being, as will make the ordinary passages of life go off with a
becoming indifference. By this, a man in the lowest condition will not
appear mean, or in the most splendid fortune, insolent.
As to all the intricacies and vicissitudes under which men are ordinarily
entangled with the utmost sorrow and passion, one who is devoted to
Heaven when he falls into such difficulties is led by a clue through a
labyrinth. As to this world, he does not pretend to skill in the mazes of it,
but fixes his thoughts upon one certainty, that he shall soon be out of it. And

we may ask very boldly, What can be a more sure consolation than to have
a hope in death? When men are arrived at thinking of their very dissolution
with pleasure, how few things are there that can be terrible to them?
Certainly nothing can be dreadful to such spirits, but what would make
death terrible to them, falsehood towards man, or impiety towards Heaven.
To such as these, as there are certainly many such, the gratifications of
innocent pleasures are doubled, even with reflections upon their
imperfection. The disappointments which naturally attend the great
promises we make ourselves in expected enjoyments, strike no damp upon
such men, but only quicken their hopes of soon knowing joys, which are too
pure to admit of allay or satiety.
It is thought among the politer part of mankind an imperfection to want a
relish of any of those things which refine our lives. This is the foundation of
the acceptance which eloquence, music, and poetry make in the world; and
I know not why devotion, considered merely as an exaltation of our
happiness, should not at least be so far regarded as to be considered. It is
possible the very inquiry would lead men into such thoughts and
gratifications as they did not expect to meet with in this place. Many a good
acquaintance has been lost from a general prepossession in his disfavour,
and a severe aspect has often hid under it a very agreeable companion.
There are no distinguishing qualities among men to which there are not
false pretenders; but though none is more pretended to than that of
devotion, there are, perhaps, fewer successful impostors in this kind than
any other. There is something so natively great and good in a person that is
truly devout, that an awkward man may as well pretend to be genteel, as a
hypocrite to be pious. The constraint in words and actions are equally
visible in both cases, and anything set up in their room does but remove the
endeavourers the further off their pretensions. But however the sense of true
piety is abated, there is no other motive of action that can carry us through
all the vicissitudes of life with alacrity and resolution. But piety, like
philosophy, when it is superficial, does but make men appear the worse for
it; and a principle that is but half received, does but distract, instead of
guiding our behaviour. When I reflect upon the unequal conduct of Lotius, I
see many things that run directly counter to his interest; therefore I cannot
attribute his labours for the public good to ambition. When I consider his
disregard to his fortune, I cannot esteem him covetous. How then can I

reconcile his neglect of himself, and his zeal for others? I have long
suspected him to be a little pious: but no man ever hid his vice with greater
caution than he does his virtue. It was the praise of a great Roman, that he
had rather be, than appear good. But such is the weakness of Lotius, that I
dare say, he had rather be esteemed irreligious than devout. By I know not
what impatience of raillery he is wonderfully fearful of being thought too
great a believer. A hundred little devices are made use of to hide a time of
private devotion; and he will allow you any suspicion of his being ill
employed, so you do not tax him with being well. But alas! how mean is
such a behaviour? To boast of virtue is a most ridiculous way of
disappointing the merit of it, but not so pitiful as that of being ashamed of
it. How unhappy is the wretch who makes the most absolute and
independent motive of action the cause of perplexity and inconstancy? How
much another figure does Cælicola[44] make with all who know him? His
great and superior mind, frequently exalted by the raptures of heavenly
meditation, is to all his friends of the same use as if an angel were to appear
at the decision of their disputes. They very well understand he is as much
disinterested and unbiassed as such a being. He considers all applications
made to him, as those addresses will effect his own application to heaven.
All his determinations are delivered with a beautiful humility; and he
pronounces his decisions with the air of one who is more frequently a
supplicant than a judge.
Thus humble, and thus great, is the man who is moved by piety, and exalted
by devotion. But behold this recommended by the masterly hand of a great
divine[45] I have heretofore made bold with:
"It is such a pleasure as can never cloy or overwork the mind; a delight that
grows and improves under thought and reflection; and while it exercises,
does also endear itself to the mind. All pleasures that affect the body must
needs weary, because they transport; and all transportation is a violence;
and no violence can be lasting, but determines upon the falling of the
spirits, which are not able to keep up that height of motion that the pleasure
of the senses raises them to. And therefore how inevitably does an
immoderate laughter end in a sigh, which is only nature's recovering itself
after a force done to it; but the religious pleasure of a well-disposed mind
moves gently, and therefore constantly. It does not effect by rapture and
ecstasy, but is like the pleasure of health, greater and stronger than those

that call up the senses with grosser and more affecting impressions. No
man's body is as strong as his appetites; but Heaven has corrected the
boundlessness of his voluptuous desires by stinting his strengths, and
contracting his capacities.... The pleasure of the religious man is an easy
and a portable pleasure, such a one as he carries about in his bosom,
without alarming either the eye or envy of the world. A man putting all his
pleasure into this one, is like a traveller putting all his goods into one jewel;
the value is the same, and the convenience greater."

FOOTNOTES:
[44] Possibly John Hughes, author of the "Siege of Damascus," who contributed
to both Tatler and Spectator. He died in 1720, aged forty-seven. In the Theatre
(No. 15) Steele said that Hughes's "head, hand, or heart was always employed in
something worthy imitation."
[45] Dr. South (see Nos. 61 and 205).

No. 212. [Steele.
From Tuesday, Aug. 15, to Thursday, Aug. 17, 1710.
From my own Apartment, Aug. 16.

have had much importunity to answer the following letter:
I
"Mr. Bickerstaff,
eading over a volume of yours, I find the words simplex munditiis
"R mentioned as a description of a very well-dressed woman.[46] I beg of
you, for the sake of the sex, to explain these terms. I cannot comprehend
what my brother means, when he tells me they signify my own name, which is,
"Sir,
"Your humble Servant,
"Plain English."
I think the lady's brother has given us a very good idea of that elegant
expression, it being the greatest beauty of speech to be close and intelligible. To
this end nothing is to be more carefully consulted than plainness. In a lady's
attire this is the single excellence; for to be what some call fine, is the same vice
in that case as to be florid is in writing or speaking. I have studied and written
on this important subject till I almost despair of making a reformation in the
females of this island, where we have more beauty than in any spot in the
universe, if we did not disguise it by false garniture, and detract from it by
impertinent improvements. I have by me a treatise concerning pinners, which I
have some hopes will contribute to the amendment of the present head-dresses,
to which I have solid and unanswerable objections. But most of the errors in
that and other particulars of adorning the head, are crept into the world from the
ignorance of modern tirewomen; for it is come to that pass, that an awkward
creature in the first year of her apprenticeship, that can hardly stick a pin, shall
take upon her to dress a woman of the first quality. However, it is certain that
there requires in a good tirewoman a perfect skill in optics; for all the force of

ornament is to contribute to the intention of the eyes. Thus she who has a mind
to look killing, must arm her face accordingly, and not leave her eyes and
cheeks undressed. There is Araminta so sensible of this, that she never will see
even her own husband without a hood[47] on. Can any one living bear to see
Miss Gruel, lean as she is, with her hair tied back after the modern way? But
such is the folly of our ladies, that because one who is a beauty, out of
ostentation of her being such, takes care to wear something that she knows
cannot be of any consequence to her complexion; I say, our women run on so
heedlessly in the fashion, that though it is the interest of some to hide as much
of their faces as possible, yet because a leading toast appeared with a backward
head-dress, the rest shall follow the mode, without observing that the author of
the fashion assumed it because it could become no one but herself.
Flavia[48] is ever well dressed, and always the genteelest woman you meet: but
the make of her mind very much contributes to the ornament of her body. She
has the greatest simplicity of manners of any of her sex. This makes everything
look native about her, and her clothes are so exactly fitted, that they appear as it
were part of her person. Every one that sees her, knows her to be of quality; but
her distinction is owing to her manner, and not to her habit. Her beauty is full of
attraction, but not of allurement. There is such a composure in her looks, and
propriety in her dress, that you would think it impossible she should change the
garb you one day see her in for anything so becoming, till you next day see her
in another. There is no other mystery in this, but that however she is apparelled,
she is herself the same: for there is so immediate a relation between our
thoughts and gestures, that a woman must think well to look well.
But this weighty subject I must put off for some other matters in which my
correspondents are urgent for answers, which I shall do where I can, and appeal
to the judgment of others where I cannot.

Aug. 15, 1710.
"Mr. Bickerstaff,
aking the air the other day on horseback in the Green Lane that leads to
"T Southgate, I discovered coming towards me a person well mounted in a
mask; and I accordingly expected, as any one would, to have been
robbed. But when we came up with each other, the spark, to my greater

surprise, very peaceably gave me the way; which made me take courage enough
to ask him, if he masqueraded, or how? He made me no answer, but still
continued incognito. This was certainly an ass in a lion's skin; a harmless bull-
beggar,[49] who delights to fright innocent people, and set them a-galloping. I
bethought myself of putting as good a jest upon him, and had turned my horse,
with a design to pursue him to London, and get him apprehended, on suspicion
of being a highwayman: but when I reflected, that it was the proper office of the
magistrate to punish only knaves, and that we had a censor of Great Britain for
people of another denomination, I immediately determined to prosecute him in
your court only. This unjustifiable frolic I take to be neither wit nor humour:
therefore hope you will do me, and as many others as were that day frighted,
justice. I am,
"Sir,
"Your Friend and Servant,
"
J. L."

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

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

Aug. 15, 1710.
"Sir,
observe that the Post-Man of Saturday last, giving an account of the action
"I in Spain, has this elegant turn of expression: 'General Stanhope,[51] who in
the whole action expressed as much bravery as conduct, received a
contusion in his right shoulder.' I should be glad to know, whether this cautious
politician means to commend or to rally him, by saying, 'He expressed as much
bravery as conduct'? If you can explain this dubious phrase, it will inform the
public, and oblige,
"Sir,
"Your humble Servant,
&c."

FOOTNOTES:
[46] See No. 151.
[47] The Spectator contains accounts of the new-fashioned hoods, which were made
in various tints, especially cherry-colour. In the reign of King William the ladies
wore a high head-dress, as appears from the following passage in a letter of Swift to
Esther Johnson, dated Nov. 22, 1711: "I dined to-day with Sir Thomas Hanmer,
whose lady, the Duchess of Grafton, wears a great high head-dress, such as was in
fashion fifteen years ago, and looks like a mad woman in it, yet she has great
remains of beauty." In the Spectator (No. 98) Addison refers to these high head-
dresses as in fashion ten years earlier, i.e. about 1701.
[48] This picture of Flavia has been thought to be a representation of Mrs. Anne
Oldfield (see No. 10), of whom Cibber wrote: "Had her birth placed her in a higher
rank of life, she had certainly appeared in reality what in the character of Lady Betty
Modish she only excellently acted, an agreeable gay woman of quality, a little too
conscious of her natural attractions. I have often seen her in private societies, where
women of the first rank might have borrowed some part of their behaviour, without
the least diminution of their sense of dignity." From this passage it will be seen that
the account of a lady "of quality," with "the greatest simplicity of manners," can
hardly be a description of Mrs. Oldfield. Moreover, the name "Flavia" occurs in No.
239, by Addison, and it appears that the lady there referred to was Miss Osborne,
who became Atterbury's wife.
[49] Something used to frighten children. Cf. Sir T. Smith's "Appendix to his Life,"
p. 34: "As children be afraid of bear-bugs and bull-beggars."
[50] See No. 210
[51] Ibid.

No. 213. [Steele.
From Thursday, Aug. 17, to Saturday, Aug. 19,
1710.
Sheer Lane, Aug. 16.

here has of late crept in among the downright English a mighty spirit of
T dissimulation. But before we discourse of this vice, it will be necessary
to observe, that the learned make a difference between simulation and
dissimulation.[52] Simulation is a pretence of what is not, and dissimulation
a concealment of what is. The latter is our present affair. When you look
round you in public places in this island, you see the generality of mankind
carry in their countenance an air of challenge or defiance: and there is no
such man to be found among us who naturally strives to do greater honours
and civilities than he receives. This innate sullenness or stubbornness of
complexion is hardly to be conquered by any of our islanders. For which
reason, however they may pretend to choose one another, they make but
very awkward rogues; and their dislike to each other is seldom so well
dissembled, but it is suspected. When once it is so, it had as good be
professed. A man who dissembles well must have none of what we call
stomach, otherwise he will be cold in his professions of good-will where he
hates; an imperfection of the last ill consequence in business. This
fierceness in our natures is apparent from the conduct of our young fellows,
who are not got into the schemes and arts of life which the children of this
world walk by. One would think that, of course, when a man of any
consequence for his figure, his mien, or his gravity, passes by a youth, he
should certainly have the first advances of salutation; but he is, you may
observe, treated in a quite different manner, it being the very characteristic
of an English temper to defy. As I am an Englishman, I find it a very hard
matter to bring myself to pull off the hat first; but it is the only way to be
upon any good terms with those we meet with: therefore the first advance is
of high moment. Men judge of others by themselves; and he that will
command with us must condescend. It moves one's spleen very agreeably to

see fellows pretend to be dissemblers without this lesson. They are so
reservedly complaisant till they have learned to resign their natural
passions, that all the steps they make towards gaining those whom they
would be well with, are but so many marks of what they really are, and not
of what they would appear.
The rough Britons, when they pretend to be artful towards one another, are
ridiculous enough; but when they set up for vices they have not, and
dissemble their good with an affectation of ill, they are insupportable. I
know two men in this town who make as good figures as any in it, that
manage their credit so well as to be thought atheists, and yet say their
prayers morning and evening. Tom Springly the other day pretended to go
to an assignation with a married woman at Rosamond's Pond,[53] and was
seen soon after reading the responses with great gravity at six-of-clock
prayers.

Sheer Lane, Aug. 17.

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

Garraway's Coffee-house,
Aug. 10.
"Mr. Bickerstaff,
have lately read your paper[54] wherein you represent a conversation
"I between a young lady, your three nephews, and yourself; and am not a
little offended at the figure you give your young merchant in the
presence of a beauty. The topic of love is a subject on which a man is more
beholden to nature for his eloquence, than to the instruction of the schools,
or my lady's woman. From the two latter, your scholar and page must have
reaped all their advantage above him. I know by this time you have
pronounced me a trader. I acknowledge it, but cannot bear the exclusion
from any pretence of speaking agreeably to a fine woman, or from any

degree of generosity that way. You have among us citizens many well-
wishers, but it is for the justice of your representations, which we, perhaps,
are better judges of than you (by the account you give of your nephew)
seem to allow.
"To give you an opportunity of making us some reparation, I desire you
would tell your own way the following instance of heroic love in the city.
You are to remember, that somewhere in your writings, for enlarging the
territories of virtue and honour, you have multiplied the opportunities of
attaining to heroic virtue, and have hinted, that in whatever state of life a
man is, if he does things above what is ordinarily performed by men of his
rank, he is in those instances a hero.[55]
"Tom Trueman, a young gentleman of eighteen years of age, fell
passionately in love with the beauteous Almira, daughter to his master. Her
regard for him was no less tender. Trueman was better acquainted with his
master's affairs than his daughter, and secretly lamented that each day
brought him by many miscarriages nearer bankruptcy than the former. This
unhappy posture of their affairs the youth suspected was owing to the ill
management of a factor, in whom his master had an entire confidence.
Trueman took a proper occasion, when his master was ruminating on his
decaying fortune, to address him for leave to spend the remainder of his
time with his foreign correspondent. During three years' stay in that
employment he became acquainted with all that concerned his master; and
by his great address in the management of that knowledge, saved him ten
thousand pounds. Soon after this accident, Trueman's uncle left him a
considerable estate. Upon receiving that advice, he returned to England, and
demanded Almira of her father. The father, overjoyed at the match, offered
him the £10,000 he had saved him, with the further proposal of resigning to
him all his business. Trueman refused both, and retired into the country
with his bride, contented with his own fortune, though perfectly skilled in
all the methods of improving it.
"It is to be noted, that Trueman refused twenty thousand pounds with
another young lady; so that reckoning both his self-denials, he is to have in
your court the merit of having given £30,000 for the woman he loved. This
gentleman I claim your justice to; and hope you will be convinced, that
some of us have larger views than only cash debtor, per contra creditor.

"Yours,
"Richard Traffic."
"N.B.—Mr. Thomas Trueman of Lime Street is entered among the heroes of
domestic life.
"Charles Lillie."

FOOTNOTES:
[52] Bacon has an essay "Of Simulation and Dissimulation"; and Sallust, in his
character of Catiline ("Bell. Cat." v.), says, "Animus, subdolus, varius, cujus rei
libet simulator ac dissimulator."
[53] See No. 60.
[54] See No. 207.
[55] See the story of Sergeant Hall in No. 87.

No. 214. [Steele.[56]
From Saturday, Aug. 19, to Tuesday, Aug. 22, 1710.

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

Virg., Georg. i. 393.

From my own Apartment, Aug. 21.

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

return a bow of a man whom he thought in disgrace, that was next day
made Secretary of State; and another, who after a long neglect of a minister,
came to his levee, and made professions of zeal for his service the very day
before he was turned out.
This produces also unavoidable confusions and mistakes in the descriptions
of great men's parts and merits. That ancient lyric, Mr. D'Urfey,[57] some
years ago wrote a dedication to a certain lord, in which he celebrated him
for the greatest poet and critic of that age, upon a misinformation in Dyer's
Letter[58], that his noble patron was made Lord Chamberlain. In short,
innumerable votes, speeches, and sermons have been thrown away, and
turned to no account, merely for want of due and timely intelligence. Nay, it
has been known, that a panegyric has been half printed off, when the poet,
upon the removal of the minister, has been forced to alter it into a satire.
For the conduct therefore of such useful persons as are ready to do their
country service upon all occasions, I have an engine in my study, which is a
sort of a Political Barometer, or, to speak more intelligibly, a State Weather-
Glass, that, by the rising and falling of a certain magical liquor, presages all
changes and revolutions in government, as the common glass does those of
the weather. This weather-glass is said to have been invented by Cardan,[59]
and given by him as a present to his great countryman and contemporary
Machiavel, which (by the way) may serve to rectify a received error in
chronology, that places one of these some years after the other. How or
when it came into my hands, I shall desire to be excused if I keep to myself;
but so it is, that I have walked by it for the better part of a century, to my
safety at least, if not to my advantage; and have among my papers, a
register of all the changes that happened in it from the middle of Queen
Elizabeth's reign.
In the time of that princess, it stood long at Settled Fair. At the latter end of
King James the First, it fell to Cloudy. It held several years after at Stormy;
insomuch that at last despairing of seeing any clear weather at home, I
followed the royal exile, and some time after finding my glass rise, returned
to my native country with the rest of the loyalists. I was then in hopes to
pass the remainder of my days in Settled Fair: but alas! during the greatest
part of that reign, the English nation lay in a Dead Calm, which, as it is
usual, was followed by high winds and tempests till of late years: in which,

with unspeakable joy and satisfaction, I have seen our political weather
returned to Settled Fair. I must only observe, that for all this last summer
my glass has pointed at Changeable. Upon the whole, I often apply to
Fortune Æneas's speech to the sybil:

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

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

FOOTNOTES:
[56] It is not unlikely that the account of a State weather-glass in this paper is by
Addison, who was the author of the description of an ecclesiastical thermometer
in No. 220.
[57] See Nos. 1, 11, and 43. The dedication was to the Second Part of "Don
Quixote," which D'Urfey addressed to Charles, Earl of Dorset, in these lines:

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

[58] See No. 18.
[59] Jerome Cardan (1501-1576), physician and astrologer (see Professor Henry
Morley's "Life of Girolamo Cardano," 1854).
[60] Virgil, "Æneid," vi. 103.

No. 215. [Steele.
From Tuesday, Aug. 22, to Thursday, Aug. 24,
1710.
From my own Apartment, Aug. 23.

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

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

a gentleman that you think so." Why, this is very well on both sides; and it
is impossible that such a gentleman and lady should do other than think
well of one another. These are but loose hints of the disturbances in human
society, of which there is yet no remedy; but I shall in a little time publish
tables of respect and civility, by which persons may be instructed in the
proper times and seasons, as well as at what degree of intimacy a man may
be allowed to commend or rally his companions; the promiscuous licence of
which is at present far from being among the small errors in conversation.
P.S.—The following letter was left, with a request to be immediately
answered, lest the artifices used against a lady in distress may come into
common practice:

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

of remedy as to the mother, the law gives the child his choice of his father
where the birth is thus legally ambiguous.

"To Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq.
"The humble Petition of the Company of Linendrapers residing
within the Liberty of Westminster;

"Showeth—That there has of late prevailed among the ladies so great an
affectation of nakedness, that they have not only left the bosom wholly
bare, but lowered their stays some inches below the former mode.[61]
"That in particular, Mrs. Arabella Overdo has not the least appearance of
linen, and our best customers show but little above the small of their backs.
"That by this means, your petitioners are in danger of losing the advantage
of covering a ninth part of every woman of quality in Great Britain.
"Your petitioners humbly offer the premises to your indulgence's
consideration, and shall ever, &c."
Before I answer this petition, I am inclined to examine the offenders myself.

FOOTNOTES:
[61] This mode, which originated in the reign of King Charles II., is shown in
Sir Peter Lely's ladies; but Walpole says that Vandyck's habits are those of the
times, but Lely's are fantastic dresses. The prevalence and dislike of this fashion
occasioned in 1678 the publication of a book translated from the French by
Edward Cooke, under the following title, "A Just and Reasonable Reprehension
of Naked Breasts and Shoulders, written by a grave and learned Papist."
Half a century after the Tatler, the "moulting of their clothes" by ladies was
again the subject of comment by the moral essayist. There are several papers on
the subject in the World (Nos. 6, 21, 169, &c.), in which it is remarked that it
was the fashion to undress to go abroad, and to dress when at home and not
seeing company.

No. 216. [Addison.
From Thursday, Aug. 24, to Saturday, Aug. 26,
1710.
—Nugis addere pondus.—Hor., 1 Ep. xix. 42.

From my own Apartment, Aug. 25.

ature is full of wonders; every atom is a standing miracle, and
N endowed with such qualities as could not be impressed on it by a
power and wisdom less than infinite. For this reason, I would not
discourage any searches that are made into the most minute and trivial parts
of the creation. However, since the world abounds in the noblest fields of
speculation, it is, methinks, the mark of a little genius to be wholly
conversant among insects, reptiles, animalcules, and those trifling rarities
that furnish out the apartment of a virtuoso.
There are some men whose heads are so oddly turned this way, that though
they are utter strangers to the common occurrences of life, they are able to
discover the sex of a cockle, or describe the generation of a mite, in all its
circumstances. They are so little versed in the world, that they scarce know
a horse from an ox; but at the same time will tell you, with a great deal of
gravity, that a flea is a rhinoceros, and a snail an hermaphrodite. I have
known one of these whimsical philosophers who has set a greater value
upon a collection of spiders than he would upon a flock of sheep, and has
sold his coat off his back to purchase a tarantula.
I would not have a scholar wholly unacquainted with these secrets and
curiosities of nature; but certainly the mind of man, that is capable of so
much higher contemplations, should not be altogether fixed upon such
mean and disproportioned objects. Observations of this kind are apt to
alienate us too much from the knowledge of the world, and to make us
serious upon trifles, by which means they expose philosophy to the ridicule
of the witty, and contempt of the ignorant. In short, studies of this nature

should be the diversions, relaxations, and amusements; not the care,
business, and concern of life.
It is indeed wonderful to consider, that there should be a sort of learned men
who are wholly employed in gathering together the refuse of nature, if I
may call it so, and hoarding up in their chests and cabinets such creatures as
others industriously avoid the sight of. One does not know how to mention
some of the most precious parts of their treasure without a kind of an
apology for it. I have been shown a beetle valued at twenty crowns, and a
toad at a hundred: but we must take this for a general rule, that whatever
appears trivial or obscene in the common notions of the world, looks grave
and philosophical in the eye of a virtuoso.
To show this humour in its perfection, I shall present my reader with the
legacy of a certain virtuoso, who laid out a considerable estate in natural
rarities and curiosities, which upon his death-bed he bequeathed to his
relations and friends, in the following words:

The Will of a Virtuoso.

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

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

Item, to my daughter Elizabeth,

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

Item, to my little daughter Fanny,

Three crocodile's eggs.

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

The nest of a humming-bird.

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

My last year's collection of grasshoppers.

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

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

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

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

to him and his issue male; and in default of such issue in the said Dr.
Elscrikius, then to return to my executor and his heirs for ever.
Having fully provided for my nephew Isaac, by making over to him some
years since

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

I make no further provision for him in this my will.
My eldest son John having spoken disrespectfully of his little sister, whom I
keep by me in spirits of wine, and in many other instances behaved himself
undutifully towards me, I do disinherit, and wholly cut off from any part of
this my personal estate, by giving him a single cockle-shell.
To my second son Charles, I give and bequeath all my flowers, plants,
minerals, mosses, shells, pebbles, fossils, beetles, butterflies, caterpillars,
grasshoppers, and vermin, not above specified: as also all my monsters,
both wet and dry, making the said Charles whole and sole executor of this
my last will and testament; he paying, or causing to be paid, the aforesaid
legacies within the space of six months after my decease. And I do hereby
revoke all other wills whatsoever by me formerly made.[62]

Advertisement.

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

FOOTNOTES:
[62] See No. 221.

No. 217. [Steele.
From Saturday, Aug. 26, to Tuesday, Aug. 29, 1710.
Atque deos atque astra vocat crudelia mater.
Virg., Eclog. v. 23.

From my own Apartment, Aug. 28.

s I was passing by a neighbour's house this morning, I overheard the
A wife of the family speak things to her husband which gave me much
disturbance, and put me in mind of a character which I wonder I have
so long omitted, and that is, an outrageous species of the fair sex which is
distinguished by the term Scolds. The generality of women are by nature
loquacious: therefore mere volubility of speech is not to be imputed to
them, but should be considered with pleasure when it is used to express
such passions as tend to sweeten or adorn conversation: but when, through
rage, females are vehement in their eloquence, nothing in the world has so
ill an effect upon the features; for by the force of it, I have seen the most
amiable become the most deformed, and she that appeared one of the
Graces, immediately turned into one of the Furies. I humbly conceive, the
great cause of this evil may proceed from a false notion the ladies have of
what we call a modest woman. They have too narrow a conception of this
lovely character, and believe they have not at all forfeited their pretensions
to it, provided they have no imputations on their chastity. But alas! the
young fellows know they pick out better women in the side-boxes[63] than
many of those who pass upon the world and themselves for modest.
Modesty never rages, never murmurs, never pouts: when it is ill-treated, it
pines, it beseeches, it languishes. The neighbour I mention is one of your
common modest women, that is to say, those as are ordinarily reckoned
such. Her husband knows every pain in life with her but jealousy. Now
because she is clear in this particular, the man can't say his soul is his own,
but she cries, "No modest woman is respected nowadays." What adds to the
comedy in this case is, that it is very ordinary with this sort of women to

talk in the language of distress: they will complain of the forlorn
wretchedness of their condition, and then the poor helpless creatures shall
throw the next thing they can lay their hands on at the person who offends
them. Our neighbour was only saying to his wife, she went a little too fine,
when she immediately pulled his periwig off, and stamping it under her
feet, wrung her hands, and said, "Never modest woman was so used." These
ladies of irresistible modesty are those who make virtue unamiable; not that
they can be said to be virtuous, but as they live without scandal; and being
under the common denomination of being such, men fear to meet their
faults in those who are as agreeable as they are innocent.
I take the bully among men, and the scold among women, to draw the
foundation of their actions from the same defect in the mind. A bully thinks
honour consists wholly in being brave, and therefore has regard to no one
rule of life, if he preserves himself from the accusation of cowardice. The
froward woman knows chastity to be the first merit in a woman; and
therefore, since no one can call her one ugly name, she calls all mankind all
the rest.
These ladies, where their companions are so imprudent as to take their
speeches for any other than exercises of their own lungs, and their
husband's patience, gain by the force of being resisted, and flame with open
fury, which is no way to be opposed but by being neglected: though at the
same time human frailty makes it very hard to relish the philosophy of
contemning even frivolous reproach. There is a very pretty instance of this
infirmity in the man of the best sense that ever was, no less a person than
Adam himself. According to Milton's description of the first couple, as soon
as they had fallen, and the turbulent passions of anger, hatred, and jealousy
first entered their breasts, Adam grew moody, and talked to his wife, as you
may find it in the 359th page, and ninth book, of "Paradise Lost," in the
octavo edition, which out of heroics, and put into domestic style, would run
thus:
"Madam, if my advice had been of any authority with you when that strange
desire of gadding possessed you this morning, we had still been happy: but
your cursed vanity and opinion of your own conduct, which is certainly
very wavering when it seeks occasions of being proved, has ruined both
yourself, and me who trusted you."

Eve had no fan in her hand to ruffle, or tucker to pull down,[64] but with a
reproachful air she answered:
"Sir, do you impute that to my desire of gadding, which might have
happened to yourself with all your wisdom and gravity? The serpent spoke
so excellently, and with so good a grace, that—Besides, what harm had I
ever done him, that he should design me any? Was I to have been always at
your side, I might as well have continued there, and been but your rib still:
but if I was so weak a creature as you thought me, why did you not
interpose your sage authority more absolutely? You denied me going as
faintly, as you say I resisted the serpent. Had not you been too easy, neither
you or I had now transgressed."
Adam replied, "Why, Eve, hast thou the impudence to upbraid me as the
cause of thy transgression for my indulgence to thee? Thus it will ever be
with him who trusts too much to woman: at the same time that she refuses
to be governed, if she suffers by her obstinacy, she will accuse the man that
shall leave her to herself."

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

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

I cannot, with all the help of science and astrology, find any other remedy
for this evil, but what was the medicine in this first quarrel; which was, as
appeared in the next book, that they were convinced of their being both
weak, but one weaker than the other.
If it were possible that the beauteous could but rage a little before a glass,
and see their pretty countenances grow wild, it is not to be doubted but it
would have a very good effect; but that would require temper: for Lady
Firebrand, upon observing her features swell when her maid vexed her the
other day, stamped her dressing-glass under her feet. In this case, when one
of this temper is moved, she is like a witch in an operation, and makes all
things turn round with her. The very fabric is in a vertigo when she begins
to charm. In an instant, whatever was the occasion that moved her blood,
she has such intolerable servants, Betty is so awkward, Tom can't carry a
message, and her husband has so little respect for her, that she, poor
woman, is weary of this life, and was born to be unhappy.
Desunt multa.

Advertisement.

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

FOOTNOTES:
[63] See No. 50.
[64] The tucker "ran in a small kind of ruffle round the uppermost verge of the
woman's stays, and by that means covered a great part of the shoulders and
bosom" (Guardian, No. 100). A tendency to abandon the use of the tucker was
the subject of Addison's satire (ibid., No. 109).
[65] "Paradise Lost," ix. 1187.
[66] "The Tatler, in his last, promises us that as the town fills he will be wittier. I
am sorry, for his sake, it has been empty so long. I believe he will be shortly as
good as his word, for his friends, I hear, are coming from Ireland. I expect, too,
some of my friends from the same country; and as he is to be new-rigged out for
a wit, so I don't question but that there will from thence, too, come fresh
materials for an Examiner." (Examiner, No. 5.)

No. 218. [Addison.
From Tuesday, Aug. 29, to Thursday, Aug. 31,
1710.
Scriptorum chorus omnis amat nemus et fugit urbes.
Hor., 2 Ep. ii. 77.

From my own Apartment, Aug. 30.

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

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

Those who are conversant in the writings of polite authors, receive an
additional entertainment from the country, as it revives in their memories
those charming descriptions with which such authors do frequently abound.
I was thinking of the foregoing beautiful simile in Milton, and applying it to
myself, when I observed to the windward of me a black cloud falling to the
earth in long trails of rain, which made me betake myself for shelter to a
house which I saw at a little distance from the place where I was walking.
As I sat in the porch, I heard the voices of two or three persons, who
seemed very earnest in discourse. My curiosity was raised when I heard the
names of Alexander the Great and Artaxerxes; and as their talk seemed to
run on ancient heroes, I concluded there could not be any secret in it; for
which reason I thought I might very fairly listen to what they said.
After several parallels between great men, which appeared to me altogether
groundless and chimerical, I was surprised to hear one say, that he valued
the Black Prince more than the Duke of Vendôme. How the Duke of
Vendôme should become a rival of the Black Prince's, I could not conceive;
and was more startled when I heard a second affirm with great vehemence,
that if the Emperor of Germany was not going off, he should like him better
than either of them. He added, that though the season was so changeable,
the Duke of Marlborough was in blooming beauty. I was wondering to
myself from whence they had received this odd intelligence, especially
when I heard them mention the names of several other great generals, as the
Prince of Hesse, and the King of Sweden, who, they said, were both
running away: to which they added, what I entirely agreed with them in,
that the Crown of France was very weak, but that the Mareschal Villars still
kept his colours. At last one of them told the company, if they would go
along with him, he would show them a chimney-sweeper and a painted lady
in the same bed, which he was sure would very much please them. The
shower which had driven them, as well as myself, into the house, was now
over: and as they were passing by me into the garden, I asked them to let
me be one of their company.
The gentleman of the house told me, if I delighted in flowers, it would be
worth my while, for that he believed he could show me such a blow of
tulips as was not to be matched in the whole country.

I accepted the offer, and immediately found that they had been talking in
terms of gardening, and that the kings and generals they had mentioned
were only so many tulips, to which the gardeners, according to their usual
custom, had given such high titles and appellations of honour.
I was very much pleased and astonished at the glorious show of these gay
vegetables, that arose in great profusion on all the banks about us.
Sometimes I considered them with the eye of an ordinary spectator as so
many beautiful objects, varnished over with a natural gloss, and stained
with such a variety of colours as are not to be equalled in any artificial dyes
or tinctures. Sometimes I considered every leaf as an elaborate piece of
tissue, in which the threads and fibres were woven together into different
configurations, which gave a different colouring to the light as it glanced on
the several parts of the surface. Sometimes I considered the whole bed of
tulips, according to the notion of the greatest mathematician and
philosopher that ever lived,[69] as a multitude of optic instruments, designed
for the separating light into all those various colours of which it is
composed.
I was awakened out of these my philosophical speculations, by observing
the company often seemed to laugh at me. I accidentally praised a tulip as
one of the finest that I ever saw; upon which they told me, it was a common
fool's-coat. Upon that I praised a second, which it seems was but another
kind of fool's-coat. I had the same fate with two or three more; for which
reason I desired the owner of the garden to let me know which were the
finest of the flowers, for that I was so unskilful in the art, that I thought the
most beautiful were the most valuable, and that those which had the gayest
colours were the most beautiful. The gentleman smiled at my ignorance: he
seemed a very plain honest man, and a person of good sense, had not his
head been touched with that distemper which Hippocrates calls the
Τυλιππομανια (Tulippomania); insomuch that he would talk very rationally
on any subject in the world but a tulip.
He told me, that he valued the bed of flowers which lay before us, and was
not above twenty yards in length, and two in breadth, more than he would
the best hundred acres of land in England; and added, that it would have
been worth twice the money it is, if a foolish cook-maid of his had not
almost ruined him the last winter, by mistaking a handful of tulip-roots for a
heap of onions, "and by that means," says he, "made me a dish of porridge,

that cost me above £1000 sterling." He then showed me what he thought the
finest of his tulips, which I found received all their value from their rarity
and oddness, and put me in mind of your great fortunes, which are not
always the greatest beauties.
I have often looked upon it as a piece of happiness, that I have never fallen
into any of these fantastical tastes, nor esteemed anything the more for its
being uncommon and hard to be met with. For this reason, I look upon the
whole country in spring-time as a spacious garden, and make as many visits
to a spot of daisies, or a bank of violets, as a florist does to his borders and
parterres. There is not a bush in blossom within a mile of me which I am
not acquainted with, nor scarce a daffodil or cowslip that withers away in
my neighbourhood without my missing it. I walked home in this temper of
mind through several fields and meadows with an unspeakable pleasure, not
without reflecting on the bounty of Providence, which has made the most
pleasing and most beautiful objects the most ordinary and most common.

FOOTNOTES:
[67] Grass mown and spread for drying.
[68] "Paradise Lost," ix. 445.
[69] Sir Isaac Newton.

No. 219. [? Steele.[70]
From Thursday, Aug. 31, to Saturday, Sept. 2, 1710.

——Solutos
Qui captat risus hominum famamque dicacis,...
Affectat, niger est, hunc tu, Romane, caveto.

Hor., 1 Sat. iv. 82.

From my own Apartment, Sept. 1.

ever were men so perplexed as a select company of us were this
N evening with a couple of possessed wits, who through our ill fortune,
and their own confidence, had thought fit to pin themselves upon a
gentleman who had owned to them that he was going to meet such and such
persons, and named us one by one. These pert puppies immediately
resolved to come with him, and from the beginning to the end of the night
entertained each other with impertinences, to which we were perfect
strangers. I am come home very much tired; for the affliction was so
irksome to me, that it surpasses all other I ever knew, insomuch that I
cannot reflect upon this sorrow with pleasure, though it is past.
An easy manner of conversation is the most desirable quality a man can
have; and for that reason coxcombs will take upon them to be familiar with
people whom they never saw before. What adds to the vexation of it is, that
they will act upon the foot of knowing you by fame, and rally with you, as
they call it, by repeating what your enemies say of you; and court you, as
they think, by uttering to your face at a wrong time all the kind things your
friends speak of you in your absence.
These people are the more dreadful, the more they have of what is usually
called wit: for a lively imagination, when it is not governed by a good
understanding, makes such miserable havoc both in conversation and

business, that it lays you defenceless, and fearful to throw the least word in
its way that may give it new matter for its further errors.
Tom Mercett has as quick a fancy as any one living; but there is no
reasonable man can bear him half-an-hour. His purpose is to entertain, and
it is of no consequence to him what is said, so it be what is called well said;
as if a man must bear a wound with patience, because he that pushed at you
came up with a good air and mien. That part of life which we spend in
company, is the most pleasing of all our moments; and therefore I think our
behaviour in it should have its laws as well as the part of our being which is
generally esteemed the more important. From hence it is, that from long
experience I have made it a maxim, that however we may pretend to take
satisfaction in sprightly mirth and high jollity, there is no great pleasure in
any company where the basis of the society is not mutual good-will. When
this is in the room, every trifling circumstance, the most minute accident,
the absurdity of a servant, the repetition of an old story, the look of a man
when he is telling it, the most indifferent and the most ordinary occurrences,
are matters which produce mirth and good-humour. I went to spend an hour
after this manner with some friends who enjoy it in perfection whenever
they meet, when those destroyers above-mentioned came in upon us. There
is not a man among them has any notion of distinction of superiority to one
another, either in their fortunes or their talents, when they are in company.
Or if any reflection to the contrary occurs in their thoughts, it only strikes a
delight upon their minds, that so much wisdom and power is in possession
of one whom they love and esteem.
In these my Lucubrations, I have frequently dwelt upon this one topic. It
would make short work for us reformers, for it is only want of making this a
position that renders some characters bad which would otherwise be good.
Tom Mercett means no man ill, but does ill to everybody. His ambition is to
be witty; and to carry on that design, he breaks through all things that other
people hold sacred. If he thought wit was no way to be used but to the
advantage of society, that sprightliness would have a new turn, and we
should expect what he is going to say with satisfaction instead of fear. It is
no excuse for being mischievous, that a man is mischievous without malice:
nor will it be thought an atonement that the ill was done not to injure the
party concerned, but to divert the indifferent.

It is, methinks, a very great error that we should not profess honesty in
conversation as much as in commerce. If we consider that there is no
greater misfortune than to be ill received where we love the turning a man
to ridicule among his friends, we rob him of greater enjoyments than he
could have purchased by his wealth; yet he that laughs at him, would
perhaps be the last man who would hurt him in this case of less
consequence. It has been said, the history of Don Quixote utterly destroyed
the spirit of gallantry in the Spanish nation; and I believe we may say much
more truly, that the humour of ridicule has done as much injury to the true
relish of company in England.
Such satisfactions as arise from the secret comparison of ourselves to
others, with relation to their inferior fortunes or merit, are mean and
unworthy. The true and high state of conversation is when men
communicate their thoughts to each other upon such subjects, and in such a
manner, as would be pleasant if there were no such thing as folly in the
world; for it is but a low condition of wit in one man which depends upon
folly in another.
P.S.—I was here interrupted by the receipt of my letters, among which is
one from a lady, who is not a little offended at my translation of the
discourse between Adam and Eve.[71] She pretends to tell me my own, as
she calls it, and quotes several passages in my works which tend to the utter
disunion of man and wife. Her epistle will best express her. I have made an
extract of it, and shall insert the most material passages:
"I suppose you know we women are not too apt to forgive: for which
reason, before you concern yourself any further with our sex, I would
advise you to answer what is said against you by those of your own. I
enclose to you business enough till you are ready for your promise of being
witty. You must not expect to say what you please without admitting others
to take the same liberty. Marry come up! You a censor? Pray read over all
these pamphlets, and these notes[72] upon your Lucubrations; by that time
you shall hear further. It is, I suppose, from such as you that people learn to
be censorious, for which I and all our sex have an utter aversion, when once
people come to take the liberty to wound reputations——"
This is the main body of the letter; but she bids me turn over, and there I
find:

"Mr. Bickerstaff,
f you will draw Mrs. Sissy Trippit according to the enclosed
"I description, I will forgive you all."

"To Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq.
"The humble Petition of Joshua Fairlove of Stepney:

"Showeth—That your petitioner is a general lover, who for some months
last past has made it his whole business to frequent the bypaths and roads
near his dwelling, for no other purpose but to hand such of the fair sex as
are obliged to pass through them.
"That he has been at great expense for clean gloves to offer his hand with.
"That towards the evening he approaches near London, and employs
himself as a convoy towards home.
"Your petitioner, therefore, most humbly prays, that for such his humble
services, he may be allowed the title of an esquire."
Mr. Morphew has orders to carry the proper instruments, and the petitioner
is to be hereafter written to upon gilt paper, by the title of Joshua Fairlove,
Esq.

FOOTNOTES:
[70] Nichols suggested that Addison was really the author of this paper. This
theory is supported by the fact that in No. 221 an error in the motto of this paper
was corrected, a matter with respect to which Addison was much more careful
than Steele. The suggestion that Tickell was the original of Tom Mercett is
untenable, especially if Addison was the writer.
[71] See No. 217.
[72] The "Annotations on the Tatler," &c. (see No. 5).

No. 220. [Addison.
From Saturday, Sept. 2, to Tuesday, Sept. 5, 1710.

Insani sapiens nomen ferat, æquus iniqui,
Ultra quam satis est, virtutem si petat ipsam.

Hor., I Ep. vi. 15.

From my own Apartment, Sept. 4.

aving received many letters filled with compliments and
H acknowledgments for my late useful discovery of the Political
Barometer,[73] I shall here communicate to the public an account of my
Ecclesiastical Thermometer, the latter giving as manifest prognostications
of the changes and revolutions in Church as the former does of those in
State, and both of them being absolutely necessary for every prudent
subject who is resolved to keep what he has, and get what he can.
The Church thermometer, which I am now to treat of, is supposed to have
been invented in the reign of Henry the Eighth, about the time when that
religious prince put some to death for owning the Pope's supremacy, and
others for denying transubstantiation. I do not find, however, any great use
made of this instrument till it fell into the hands of a learned and vigilant
priest or minister (for he frequently wrote himself both one and the other),
who was some time Vicar of Bray. This gentleman lived in his vicarage to a
good old age; and after having seen several successions of his neighbouring
clergy either burnt or banished, departed this life with the satisfaction of
having never deserted his flock, and died Vicar of Bray. As this glass was
first designed to calculate the different degrees of heat in religion, as it
raged in Popery, or as it cooled and grew temperate in the Reformation, it
was marked at several distances, after the manner our ordinary thermometer
is to this day, viz., Extreme Hot, Sultry Hot, Very Hot, Hot, Warm,

Temperate, Cold, Just Freezing, Frost, Hard Frost, Great Frost, Extreme
Cold.
It is well known, that Toricellius, the inventor of the common weather-
glass, made the experiment in a long tube which held thirty-two feet of
water; and that a more modern virtuoso finding such a machine altogether
unwieldy and useless, and considering that thirty-two inches of quicksilver
weighed as much as so many feet of water in a tube of the same
circumference, invented that sizable instrument which is now in use. After
this manner, that I might adapt the thermometer I am now speaking of to the
present constitution of our Church, as divided into High and Low, I have
made some necessary variations both in the tube and the fluid it contains. In
the first place, I ordered a tube to be cast in a planetary hour, and took care
to seal it hermetically, when the sun was in conjunction with Saturn. I then
took the proper precautions about the fluid, which is a compound of two
very different liquors: one of them a spirit drawn out of a strong heady
wine; the other a particular sort of rock water, colder than ice, and clearer
than crystal. The spirit is of a red fiery colour, and so very apt to ferment,
that unless it be mingled with a proportion of the water, or pent up very
close, it will burst the vessel that holds it, and fly up in fume and smoke.
The water, on the contrary, is of such a subtle piercing cold, that unless it be
mingled with a proportion of the spirits, it will sink through almost
everything that it is put into, and seems to be of the same nature as the
water mentioned by Quintus Curtius, which, says the historian, could be
contained in nothing but in the hoof or (as the Oxford manuscript has it) in
the skull of an ass. The thermometer is marked according to the following
figure, which I set down at length, not only to give my reader a clear idea of
it, but also to fill up my paper.

Ignorance.
Persecution.
Wrath.
Zeal.
Church.
Moderation.
Lukewarmness.
Infidelity.
Ignorance.

The reader will observe, that the Church is placed in the middle point of the
glass, between Zeal and Moderation, the situation in which she always
flourishes, and in which every good Englishman wishes her who is a friend
to the constitution of his country. However, when it mounts to Zeal, it is not
amiss; and when it sinks to Moderation, is still in a most admirable temper.
The worst of it is, that when once it begins to rise, it has still an inclination
to ascend, insomuch that it is apt to climb from Zeal to Wrath, and from
Wrath to Persecution, which always ends in Ignorance, and very often
proceeds from it. In the same manner it frequently takes its progress
through the lower half of the glass; and when it has a tendency to fall, will
gradually descend from Moderation to Lukewarmness, and from
Lukewarmness to Infidelity, which very often terminates in Ignorance, and
always proceeds from it.
It is a common observation, that the ordinary thermometer will be affected
by the breathing of people who are in the room where it stands; and indeed,
it is almost incredible to conceive how the glass I am now describing will
fall by the breath of a multitude crying "Popery"; or on the contrary, how it
will rise when the same multitude (as it sometimes happens) cry out in the
same breath, "The Church is in danger."
As soon as I had finished this my glass, and adjusted it to the above-
mentioned scale of religion, that I might make proper experiments with it, I
carried it under my cloak to several coffee-houses, and other places of
resort about this great city. At St. James's Coffee-house, the liquor stood at
Moderation; but at Will's, to my extreme surprise, it subsided to the very
lowest mark on the glass. At the Grecian, it mounted but just one point

higher; at the Rainbow,[74] it still ascended two degrees: Child's fetched it
up to Zeal, and other adjacent coffee-houses to Wrath.
It fell into the lower half of the glass as I went farther into the city, till at
length it settled at Moderation, where it continued all the time I stayed
about the 'Change, as also whilst I passed by the Bank. And here I cannot
but take notice, that through the whole course of my remarks, I never
observed my glass to rise at the same time that the stocks did.
To complete the experiment, I prevailed upon a friend of mine, who works
under me in the occult sciences, to make a progress with my glass through
the whole island of Great Britain; and after his return, to present me with a
register of his observations. I guessed beforehand at the temper of several
places he passed through, by the characters they have had time out of mind.
Thus that facetious divine, Dr. Fuller, speaking of the town of Banbury near
a hundred years ago, tells us, it was a place famous for cakes and zeal,
which I find by my glass is true to this day as to the latter part of this
description; though I must confess, it is not in the same reputation for cakes
that it was in the time of that learned author; and thus of other places. In
short, I have now by me, digested in an alphabetical order, all the counties,
corporations, and boroughs in Great Britain, with their respective tempers,
as they stand related to my thermometer: but this I shall keep to myself,
because I would by no means do anything that may seem to influence any
ensuing elections.
The point of doctrine which I would propagate by this my invention, is the
same which was long ago advanced by that able teacher Horace, out of
whom I have taken my text for this discourse: we should be careful not to
overshoot ourselves in the pursuits even of virtue. Whether zeal or
moderation be the point we aim at, let us keep fire out of the one, and frost
out of the other. But alas! the world is too wise to want such a precaution.
The terms High Church and Low Church, as commonly used, do not so
much denote a principle, as they distinguish a party. They are like words of
battle, that have nothing to do with their original signification, but are only
given out to keep a body of men together, and to let them know friends
from enemies.
I must confess, I have considered with some little attention the influence
which the opinions of these great national sects have upon their practice;

and do look upon it as one of the unaccountable things of our times, that
multitudes of honest gentlemen, who entirely agree in their lives, should
take it in their heads to differ in their religion.

FOOTNOTES:
[73] See No. 214.
[74] The Rainbow Tavern, by the Inner Temple Gate, Fleet Street, was
established as a coffee-house by James Farr, a barber, in or before 1657.

No. 221. [? Addison.[75]
From Tuesday, Sept. 5, to Thursday, Sept. 7, 1710.

——Sicut meus est mos,
Nescio quid meditans nugarum; totus in illis.

Hor., 1 Sat. ix. 1.

From my own Apartment, Sept. 6.

s I was this morning going out of my house, a little boy in a black coat
A delivered to me the following letter. Upon asking who he was, he told
me, that he belonged to my Lady Gimcrack. I did not at first recollect
the name; but upon inquiry, found it to be the widow of Sir Nicholas, whose
legacy I lately gave some account of to the world.[76] The letter ran thus:

"Mr. Bickerstaff,
hope you will not be surprised to receive a letter from the Widow
"I Gimcrack. You know, sir, that I have lately lost a very whimsical
husband, who I find, by one of your last week's papers, was not
altogether a stranger to you. When I married this gentleman, he had a very
handsome estate; but upon buying a set of microscopes, he was chosen a
Fellow of the Royal Society; from which time I do not remember ever to
have heard him speak as other people did, or talk in a manner that any of his
family could understand him. He used, however, to pass away his time very
innocently in conversation with several members of that learned body; for
which reason I never advised him against their company for several years,
till at last I found his brain was quite turned with their discourses. The first
symptom which he discovered of his being a virtuoso, as you call him, poor

man! was about fifteen years ago, when he gave me positive orders to turn
off an old weeding-woman that had been employed in the family for several
years. He told me at the same time, that there was no such thing in nature as
a weed, and that it was his design to let his garden produce what it pleased;
so that you may be sure it makes a very pleasant show as it now lies. About
the same time he took a humour to ramble up and down the country, and
would often bring home with him his pockets full of moss and pebbles. This
you may be sure gave me a heavy heart; though at the same time I must
needs say, he had the character of a very honest man, notwithstanding he
was reckoned a little weak, till he began to sell his estate, and buy those
strange baubles that you have taken notice of. Upon Midsummer-day last,
as he was walking with me in the fields, he saw a very odd-coloured
butterfly just before us. I observed, that he immediately changed colour,
like a man that is surprised with a piece of good luck, and telling me that it
was what he had looked for above these twelve years, he threw off his coat,
and followed it. I lost sight of them both in less than a quarter of an hour;
but my husband continued the chase over hedge and ditch till about sunset;
at which time, as I was afterwards told, he caught the butterfly, as she rested
herself upon a cabbage, near five miles from the place where he first put her
up. He was here lifted from the ground by some passengers in a very
fainting condition, and brought home to me about midnight. His violent
exercise threw him into a fever, which grew upon him by degrees, and at
last carried him off. In one of the intervals of his distemper, he called to me,
and after having excused himself for running out of his estate, he told me,
that he had always been more industrious to improve his mind than his
fortune; and that his family must rather value themselves upon his memory
as he was a wise man, than a rich one. He then told me, that it was a custom
among the Romans, for a man to give his slaves their liberty when he lay
upon his death-bed. I could not imagine what this meant, till after having a
little composed himself, he ordered me to bring him a flea which he had
kept for several months in a chain, with a design, as he said, to give it its
manumission. This was done accordingly. He then made the will, which I
have since seen printed in your works word for word. Only I must take
notice, that you have omitted the codicil, in which he left a large Concha
Veneris, as it is there called, to a member of the Royal Society, who was
often with him in his sickness, and assisted him in his will. And now, sir, I
come to the chief business of my letter, which is, to desire your friendship

and assistance in the disposal of those many rarities and curiosities which
lie upon my hands. If you know any one that has an occasion for a parcel of
dried spiders, I will sell them a pennyworth.[77] I could likewise let any one
have a bargain of cockle-shells. I would also desire your advice, whether I
had best sell my beetles in a lump, or by retail. The gentleman above
mentioned, who was my husband's friend, would have me make an auction
of all his goods, and is now drawing up a catalogue of every particular for
that purpose, with the two following words in great letters over the head of
them, Auctio Gimcrackiana. But upon talking with him, I begin to suspect
he is as mad as poor Sir Nicholas was. Your advice in all these particulars
will be a great piece of charity to,
"Sir,
"Your most humble Servant,
"Elizabeth Gimcrack."
I shall answer the foregoing letter, and give the widow my best advice, as
soon as I can find out chapmen for the wares which she has to put off. In the
meantime, I shall give my reader the sight of a letter which I have received
from another female correspondent by the same post.

"Good Mr. Bickerstaff,
am convinced by a late paper of yours,[78] that a passionate woman
"I (which among the common people goes under the name of a scold) is
one of the most insupportable creatures in the world. But alas! sir,
what can we do? I have made a thousand vows and resolutions every
morning to guard myself against this frailty, but have generally broken them
before dinner, and could never in my life hold out till the second course was
set upon the table. What most troubles me is, that my husband is as patient
and good-natured as your own Worship, or any man living can be. Pray give
me some directions, for I would observe the strictest and severest rules you
can think of to cure myself of this distemper, which is apt to fall into my
tongue every moment. I am,

"Sir,
"Your most humble
Servant, &c."
In answer to this most unfortunate lady, I must acquaint her, that there is
now in town an ingenious physician of my acquaintance, who undertakes to
cure all the vices and defects of the mind by inward medicines, or outward
applications. I shall give the world an account of his patients and his cures
in other papers, when I shall be more at leisure to treat upon this subject. I
shall only here inform my correspondent, that for the benefit of such ladies
that are troubled with virulent tongues, he has prepared a cold bath, over
which there is fastened, at the end of a long pole, a very convenient chair,
curiously gilt and carved. When the patient is seated in this chair, the doctor
lifts up the pole, and gives her two or three total immersions in the cold
bath, till such time as she has quite lost the use of speech. This operation so
effectually chills the tongue, and refrigerates the blood, that a woman, who
at her entrance into the chair is extremely passionate and sonorous, will
come out as silent and gentle as a lamb. The doctor told me, he would not
practise this experiment upon women of fashion, had not he seen it made
upon those of meaner condition with very good effect.

FOOTNOTES:
[75] This paper has been attributed to Addison, though not included in his works,
because it is a sequel to No. 216, and because of the corrections in the following
number of the folio issue. These corrections consist of "immersions" for
"emersions," and instructions to omit "immediately" in a passage where the word
occurred twice in a short space. Steele was not in the habit of noticing these
small points.
[76] See No. 216.
[77] A bargain. Dryden (translation of Juvenal) wrote, "He had no mighty
pennyworth of his prayer."
[78] No. 217

No. 222. [? Addison.[79]
From Thursday, Sept. 7, to Saturday, Sept. 9, 1710.

——Chrysidis udas
Ebrius ante fores extincta cum face cantat.

Persius, Sat. v. 165.

From my own Apartment, Sept. 8.

hereas by letters from Nottingham we have advice, that the young
W ladies of that place complain for want of sleep, by reason of certain
riotous lovers, who for this last summer have very much infested the
streets of that eminent city with violins and bass-viols, between the hours of
twelve and four in the morning, to the great disturbance of many of her
Majesty's peaceable subjects. And whereas I have been importuned to
publish some edict against these midnight alarms, which, under the name of
serenades, do greatly annoy many well-disposed persons, not only in the
place above mentioned, but also in most of the polite towns of this island.
I have taken that matter into my serious consideration, and do find, that this
custom is by no means to be indulged in this country and climate.
It is indeed very unaccountable, that most of our British youth should take
such great delight in these nocturnal expeditions. Your robust true-born
Briton, that has not yet felt the force of flames and darts, has a natural
inclination to break windows; while those whose natural ruggedness has
been soothed and softened by gentle passion, have as strong a propensity to
languish under them, especially if they have a fiddler behind them to utter
their complaints: for as the custom prevails at present, there is scarce a
young man of any fashion in a corporation who does not make love with the
town music. The waits often help him through his courtship; and my friend
Mr. Banister[80] has told me, he was proffered five hundred pounds by a

young fellow to play but for one winter under the window of a lady that was
a great fortune, but more cruel than ordinary. One would think they hoped
to conquer their mistresses' hearts as people tame hawks and eagles, by
keeping them awake, or breaking their sleep when they are fallen into it.
I have endeavoured to search into the original of this impertinent way of
making love, which, according to some authors, is of great antiquity. If we
may believe Monsieur Dacier and other critics, Horace's tenth ode of the
third book was originally a serenade. And if I was disposed to show my
learning, I could produce a line of him in another place, which seems to
have been the burthen of an old heathen serenade.

----Audis minus et minus jam:
"Me tuo longas pereunte noctes,
Lydia, dormis?"[81]

But notwithstanding the opinions of many learned men upon this subject, I
rather agree with them who look upon this custom, as now practised, to
have been introduced by castrated musicians, who found out this way of
applying themselves to their mistresses at these hours, when men of hoarser
voices express their passions in a more vulgar method. It must be
confessed, that your Italian eunuchs do practise this manner of courtship to
this day.
But whoever were the persons that first thought of the serenade, the authors
of all countries are unanimous in ascribing the invention to Italy.
There are two circumstances which qualified that country above all other
for this midnight music.
The first I shall mention, was the softness of their climate.
This gave the lover opportunities of being abroad in the air, or of lying upon
the earth whole hours together, without fear of damps or dews; but as for
our tramontane lovers, when they begin their midnight complaint with,
My lodging it is on the cold ground,[82]
we are not to understand them in the rigour of the letter, since it would be
impossible for a British swain to condole himself long in that situation

without really dying for his mistress. A man might as well serenade in
Greenland as in our region. Milton seems to have had in his thoughts the
absurdity of these Northern serenades in the censure which he passes upon
them:

——Or midnight ball,
Or serenade, which the starved lover sings
To his proud fair, best quitted with disdain.[83]

The truth of it is, I have often pitied, in a winter night, a vocal musician,
and have attributed many of his trills and quavers to the coldness of the
weather.
The second circumstance which inclined the Italians to this custom, was
that musical genius which is so universal among them. Nothing is more
frequent in that country than to hear a cobbler working to an opera tune.
You can scarce see a porter that has not one nail much longer than the rest,
which you will find, upon inquiry, is cherished for some instrument. In
short, there is not a labourer, or handicraft-man, that in the cool of the
evening does not relieve himself with solos and sonatas.
The Italian soothes his mistress with a plaintive voice, and bewails himself
in such melting music that the whole neighbourhood sympathises with him
in his sorrow:

Qualis populea mœrens Philomela sub umbra ...
Flet noctem, ramoque sedens miserabile carmen
Integrat, et mœstis late loca questibus implet.[84]

On the contrary, our honest countrymen have so little an inclination to
music, that they seldom begin to sing till they are drunk, which also is
usually the time when they are most disposed to serenade.

FOOTNOTES:
[79] This paper is ascribed to Addison by Nichols, because of the corrections—
five in number—in the following number of the folio issue.

[80] John Banister (died 1735) was the son of a composer and violinist of the
same name. He played in the royal band, and was first violin at Drury Lane
Theatre when Italian operas were introduced into this country.
[81] Horace, 1 Od. xxv. 8.
[82] The first line in a song in a tragi-comedy, "The Rivals" (1668), attributed to
Sir William Davenant. Mrs. Mary Davis, dancer and actress, who boarded with
Sir William Davenant in his house, is stated to have sung this song in the
character of Celania, a shepherdess mad for love, so much to the liking of
Charles II. that he took her off the stage. Mary Tudor, their daughter, married
Francis Lord Ratcliffe, afterwards Earl of Derwentwater, and was the mother of
James, Earl of Derwentwater, beheaded in 1716.
[83] "Paradise Lost," iv. 760 (cf. Nos. 79 and 82).
[84] Virgil, "Georgics," iv. 511, 514-15.

No. 223. [? Steele.[85]
From Saturday, Sept. 9, to Tuesday, Sept. 12, 1710.

For when upon their ungot heirs,
Th' entail themselves and all that's theirs,
What blinder bargain e'er was driven,
Or wager laid at six and seven,
To pass themselves away, and turn
Their children's tenants ere they're born?—Hudibras.

From my own Apartment, Sept. 11.

have been very much solicited by Clarinda, Flavia, and Lysetta, to
I reassume my discourse concerning the methods of disposing honourably
the unmarried part of the world,[86] and taking off those bars to it,
jointures and settlements, which are not only the greatest impediments
towards entering into that state, but also the frequent causes of distrust and
animosity in it after it is consummated. I have with very much attention
considered the case; and among all the observations that I have made
through a long course of years, I have thought the coldness of wives to their
husbands, as well as disrespect from children to parents, to arise from this
one source. This trade for minds and bodies in the lump, without regard to
either, but as they are accompanied with such sums of money, and such
parcels of land, cannot but produce a commerce between the parties
concerned suitable to the mean motives upon which they at first came
together. I have heretofore given an account that this method of making
settlements was first invented by a griping lawyer, who made use of the
covetous tempers of the parents of each side to force two young people into
these vile measures of diffidence, for no other end but to increase the skins
of parchment, by which they were put into each other's possession out of
each other's power. The law of our country has given an ample and
generous provision for the wife, even the third of the husband's estate, and

left to her good-humour and his gratitude the expectation of further
provision; but the fantastical method of going further, with relation to their
heirs, has a foundation in nothing but pride and folly: for as all men wish
their children as like themselves, and as much better as they can possibly, it
seems monstrous that we should give out of ourselves the opportunities of
rewarding and discouraging them according to their deserts. This wise
institution has no more sense in it than if a man should begin a deed with,
"Whereas no man living knows how long he shall continue to be a
reasonable creature, or an honest man: and whereas I B. am going to enter
in the state of matrimony with Mrs. D., therefore I shall from henceforth
make it indifferent to me whether from this time forward I shall be a fool or
a knave: and therefore in full and perfect health of body, and as sound mind,
not knowing which of my children will prove better or worse, I give to my
first-born, be he perverse, ungrateful, impious, or cruel, the lump and bulk
of my estate, and leave one year's purchase only to each of my younger
children, whether they shall be brave or beautiful, modest or honourable,
from the time of the date hereof wherein I resign my senses, and hereby
promise to employ my judgment no further in the distribution of my
worldly goods from the day of the date hereof, hereby further confessing
and covenanting, that I am from henceforth married and dead in law."
There is no man that is conversant in modern settlements, but knows this is
an exact translation of what is inserted in these instruments. Men's passions
could only make them submit to such terms; and therefore all unreasonable
bargains in marriage ought to be set aside, as well as deeds extorted from
men under force or in prison, who are altogether as much masters of their
actions as he that is possessed with a violent passion.
How strangely men are sometimes partial to themselves appears by the
rapine of him that has a daughter's beauty under his direction. He will make
no scruple of using it to force from her lover as much of his estate as is
worth £10,000, and at the same time, as a Justice on the Bench, will spare
no pains to get a man hanged that has taken but a horse from him.
It is to be hoped the Legislature will in due time take this kind of robbery
into consideration, and not suffer men to prey upon each other when they
are about making the most solemn league, and entering into the strictest
bonds. The only sure remedy is to fix a certain rate on every woman's
fortune; one price for that of a maid, and another for a widow: for it is of

infinite advantage, that there should be no frauds or uncertainties in the sale
of our women.
If any man should exceed the settled rate, he ought to be at liberty after
seven years are over (by which time his love may be supposed to abate a
little, if it is not founded upon reason) to renounce the bargain, and be freed
from the settlement upon restoring the portion; as a youth married under
fourteen years old may be off if he pleases when he comes to that age, and
as a man is discharged from all bargains but that of marriage made when he
is under twenty-one.
It grieves me when I consider, that these restraints upon matrimony take
away the advantage we should otherwise have over other countries, which
are sunk much by those great checks upon propagation, the convents. It is
thought chiefly owing to these that Italy and Spain want above half their
complement of people. Were the price of wives always fixed and settled, it
would contribute to filling the nation more than all the encouragements that
can possibly be given to foreigners to transplant themselves hither.
I therefore, as censor of Britain, till a law is made, will lay down rules
which shall be observed with penalty of degrading all that break them into
Pretty Fellows, Smarts, Squibs, Hunting-Horns, Drums, and Bagpipes.
The females that are guilty of breaking my orders I shall respectively
pronounce to be Kits, Hornpipes, Dulcimers, and Kettle-drums. Such
widows as wear the spoils of one husband I will bury if they attempt to rob
another.
I ordain, that no woman ever demand one shilling to be paid after her
husband's death, more than the very sum she brings him, or an equivalent
for it in land.
That no settlement be made, in which the man settles on his children more
than the reversion of the jointure, or the value of it in money; so that at his
death he may in the whole be bound to pay his family but double to what he
has received. I would have the eldest, as well as the rest, have his provision
out of this.
When men are not able to come up to those settlements I have proposed, I
would have them receive so much of the portion only as they can come up

to, and the rest to go to the woman by way of pin-money, or separate
maintenance. In this, I think, I determined equally between the two sexes.
If any lawyer varies from these rules, or is above two days in drawing a
marriage settlement, or uses more words in it than one skin of parchment
will contain, or takes above five pounds for drawing it, I would have him
thrown over the bar.
Were these rules observed, a woman with a small fortune, and a great deal
of worth, would be sure to marry according to her deserts, if the man's
estate were to be less encumbered in proportion as her fortune is less than
he might have with others.
A man of a great deal of merit, and not much estate, might be chosen for his
worth; because it would not be difficult for him to make a settlement.
The man that loves a woman best, would not lose her for not being able to
bid so much as another, or for not complying with an extravagant demand.
A fine woman would no more be set up to auction as she is now. When a
man puts in for her, her friends or herself take care to publish it; and the
man that was the first bidder is made no other use of but to raise the price.
He that loves her, will continue in waiting as long as she pleases (if her
fortune be thought equal to his), and under pretence of some failure in the
rent-roll, or difficulties in drawing the settlement, he is put off till a better
bargain is made with another.
All the rest of the sex that are not rich or beautiful to the highest degree are
plainly gainers, and would be married so fast, that the least charming of
them would soon grow beauties to the bachelors.
Widows might be easily married, if they would not, as they do now, set up
for discreet, only by being mercenary.
The making matrimony cheap and easy, would be the greatest
discouragement to vice: the limiting the expense of children would not
make men ill inclined, or afraid of having them in a regular way; and the
men of merit would not live unmarried, as they often do now, because the
goodness of a wife cannot be insured to them; but the loss of an estate is
certain, and a man would never have the affliction of a worthless heir added
to that of a bad wife.

I am the more serious, large, and particular on this subject, because my
Lucubrations designed for the encouragement of virtue cannot have the
desired success as long as this encumbrance of settlements continues upon
matrimony.

FOOTNOTES:
[85] Steele (or Addison) edited this paper, but the real author was their friend
Edward Wortley Montagu, to whom the second volume of the Tatler was
dedicated. Mr. Moy Thomas says that Addison and Steele "were in the habit of
asking him for hints and heads for papers; and there are among the Wortley
Manuscripts original sketches of essays which may be found in the Tatler." This
essay on marriage settlements "was entirely founded on Mr. Wortley's notes, and
is frequently in his own words." He quarrelled with his future father-in-law
because he objected to settle his property upon a future son, and he eloped with
Lady Mary Pierrepont in August 1712. In a letter to Addison which accompanied
the "loose hints" for this number, he says, "What made me think so much of it
was a discourse with Sir P. King, who says that a man that settles his estate does
not know that two and two make four" ("Letters of Lady M. W. Montagu," ed.
Moy Thomas, i. 5, 10, 62). No doubt Wortley Montagu's notes furnished the
materials for No. 199, and perhaps for No. 198 also.
[86] See No. 199.

No. 224. [Addison.
From Tuesday, Sept. 12, to Thursday, Sept. 14,
1710.
Materiam superabat opus.—Ovid, Met. ii. 5.

From my own Apartment, Sept. 13.

t is my custom, in a dearth of news, to entertain myself with those
I collections of advertisements that appear at the end of all our public
prints.[87] These I consider as accounts of news from the little world, in
the same manner that the foregoing parts of the paper are from the great. If
in one we hear that a sovereign prince is fled from his capital city, in the
other we hear of a tradesman who hath shut up his shop, and run away. If in
one we find the victory of a general, in the other we see the desertion of a
private soldier. I must confess, I have a certain weakness in my temper that
is often very much affected by these little domestic occurrences, and have
frequently been caught with tears in my eyes over a melancholy
advertisement.
But to consider this subject in its most ridiculous lights, advertisements are
of great use to the vulgar: first of all, as they are instruments of ambition. A
man that is by no means big enough for the Gazette, may easily creep into
the advertisements; by which means we often see an apothecary in the same
paper of news with a plenipotentiary, or a running-footman with an
ambassador. An advertisement from Piccadilly[88] goes down to posterity
with an article from Madrid; and John Bartlet[89] of Goodman's Fields is
celebrated in the same paper with the Emperor of Germany. Thus the fable
tells us, that the wren mounted as high as the eagle, by getting upon his
back.
A second use which this sort of writings have been turned to of late years,
has been the management of controversy, insomuch that above half the
advertisements one meets with nowadays are purely polemical. The

inventors of Strops for Razors[90] have written against one another this way
for several years, and that with great bitterness; as the whole argument pro
and con in the case of the Morning-gowns[91] is still carried on after the
same manner. I need not mention the several proprietors of Dr. Anderson's
pills;[92] nor take notice of the many satirical works of this nature so
frequently published by Dr. Clark,[93] who has had the confidence to
advertise upon that learned knight, my very worthy friend, Sir William
Read.[94] But I shall not interpose in their quarrel; Sir William can give him
his own in advertisements, that, in the judgment of the impartial, are as well
penned as the doctor's.
The third and last use of these writings is, to inform the world where they
may be furnished with almost everything that is necessary for life. If a man
has pains in his head, colics in his bowels, or spots in his clothes, he may
here meet with proper cures and remedies. If a man would recover a wife or
a horse that is stolen or strayed; if he wants new sermons, electuaries,[95]
ass's milk,[96] or anything else, either for his body or his mind, this is the
place to look for them in.
The great art in writing advertisements, is the finding out a proper method
to catch the reader's eye; without which, a good thing may pass over
unobserved, or be lost among commissions of bankrupt. Asterisks and
hands were formerly of great use for this purpose. Of late years, the N.B.
has been much in fashion; as also little cuts and figures, the invention of
which we must ascribe to the author of Spring Trusses. I must not here omit
the blind Italian character, which being scarce legible, always fixes and
detains the eye, and gives the curious reader something like the satisfaction
of prying into a secret.
But the great skill in an advertiser is chiefly seen in the style which he
makes use of. He is to mention the universal esteem, or general reputation,
of things that were never heard of. If he is a physician or astrologer, he must
change his lodgings frequently, and (though he never saw anybody in them
besides his own family) give public notice of it, for the information of the
nobility and gentry. Since I am thus usefully employed in writing criticisms
on the works of these diminutive authors, I must not pass over in silence an
advertisement which has lately made its appearance, and is written
altogether in a Ciceronian manner. It was sent to me, with five shillings, to

be inserted among my advertisements; but as it is a pattern of good writing
in this way, I shall give it a place in the body of my paper:

he highest compounded spirit of lavender, the most glorious (if the
"T expression may be used) enlivening scent and flavour that can
possibly be, which so raptures the spirits, delights the gust, and gives
such airs to the countenance, as are not to be imagined but by those that
have tried it. The meanest sort of the thing is admired by most gentlemen
and ladies; but this far more, as by far it exceeds it, to the gaining among all
a more than common esteem. It is sold (in neat flint bottles fit for the
pocket) only at the Golden Key, in Warton's Court, near Holborn Bars, for
3s. 6d. with directions."
At the same time that I recommend the several flowers in which this spirit
of lavender is wrapped up (if the expression may be used), I cannot excuse
my fellow-labourers for admitting into their papers several uncleanly
advertisements, not at all proper to appear in the works of polite writers.
Among these I must reckon the Carminative Wind-expelling Pills.[97] If the
doctor had called them only his carminative pills, he had been as cleanly as
one could have wished; but the second word entirely destroys the decency
of the first. There are other absurdities of this nature so very gross, that I
dare not mention them; and shall therefore dismiss this subject, with a
public admonition to Michael Parrot,[98] that he do not presume any more to
mention a certain worm he knows of, which, by the way, has grown seven
foot in my memory; for, if I am not much mistaken, it is the same that was
but nine foot long about six months ago.
By the remarks I have here made, it plainly appears, that a collection of
advertisements is a kind of miscellany; the writers of which, contrary to all
authors, except men of quality, give money to the booksellers who publish
their copies. The genius of the bookseller is chiefly shown in his method of
ranging and digesting these little tracts. The last paper I took up in my
hands, places them in the following order:

The True Spanish Blacking for Shoes, &c.[99]
The Beautifying Cream for the Face, &c.[100]
Pease and Plaisters, &c.
Nectar and Ambrosia, &c.[101]
Four Freehold Tenements of £15 per Annum, &c.[102]
⁂ "The Present State of England," &c.[103]
†‡† "Annotations upon the Tatler," &c.[104]

Commission of Bankrupt being awarded against B. L., Bookseller, &c.
A [105]

FOOTNOTES:
[87] Addison wrote again on advertisements, in the Spectator (No. 547).
[88] "At the Golden Cupid, in Piccadilly, lives the widow Varick, who is leaving
off her trade, hath some statues and boys, and a considerable parcel of flower-
pots and vases second-hand, to be sold a great pennyworth" (Post-Man,
September 16-19, 1710).
[89] Bartlet, "at the Golden Ball, by the Ship Tavern, in Prescot Street, in
Goodman's Fields," advertised inventions for the cure of ruptures; "also divers
instruments to help the weak and crooked." "His mother, the wife of the late Mr.
Christopher Bartlet, lives at the place above mentioned, who is very skilful in the
business to those of her own sex" (Tatler, No. 70). There was also an S. Bartlet,
at the Naked Boy, in Dean Street, Red Lion Square, who carried on a similar
business (Post-Man, September 2-5, 1710).
[90] "The so much-famed strops for setting razors, &c., are only to be had at
Jacob's Coffee-house, in Threadneedle Street, with directions. Price 1s. each.
Beware of counterfeits, for such are abroad. The trues ones, which deservedly
have gained so much commendation, are only to be had as above. Golden snuff
still to be had there, 6d. per paper" (Post-Man, March 23, 1703). Steele alluded
twice to the author of "strops for razors" in the Spectator (Nos. 428 and 509). In
No. 423 of the Spectator there was an advertisement of "the famous original
Venetian strops." Swift, referring to rival imitations of the Tatler published in
January 1711, says, "So there must be disputes which are genuine, like the strops
for razors."
[91] "Morning gowns of men and women, of silks, stuffs, and calicoes (being the
goods of persons that failed), which were to be disposed of at the Olive Tree and
Still, are now to be sold at the Golden Sugar Loaf, up one pair of stairs, over
against the Horse, at Charing Cross; with a fresh parcel at very low rates, the
price being set on each gown" (Tatler, No. 222). A similar advertisement from

"the Black Lion, over against Foster Lane, Cheapside" (Examiner, December 7-
14, 1710).
[92] See No. 9. "The Scots Pills first made by Dr. Patrick Anderson, of the
kingdom of Scotland, I John Gray do most faithfully and truly prepare,
according to the doctor's method in his lifetime, and sell them as he sold them,
that is, 5s. the whole box, 2s. 6d. the half box, 15d. the quarter box. Take notice,
my pill has not that griping quality that is in the pill of a perpetual vain-boaster,
whose pretended authority can never better the doctor's receipt who first
invented them; the true knowledge whereof is in myself, as by my receipt, and
further testimony of many famous doctors in this kingdom, it most plainly
appears.... These pills are sold at my house, the Golden Head, between the Little
Turnstile and the Bull Inn, in High Holborn. Signed, John Gray"(Post-Boy,
January 3, 1699). "Dr. Anderson's, or the famous Scots Pills, are (by his
Majesty's authority) faithfully prepared only by J. Inglish, now living at the
Golden Unicorn, over against the Maypole, in the Strand; and to prevent
counterfeits from Scotland, as well as in and about London, you are desired to
take notice, that the true pills have their boxes sealed on the top (in black wax),
with a lion rampant and three mullets argent; Dr. Anderson's head betwixt J. J.,
with his name round it, and Isabella Inglish underneath it in a scroll" (Post-Man,
January 9, 1700). "The right Scotch Pills, made by the heirs of Dr. Anderson in
Scotland, are to be had of Mrs. Man, at Old Man's Coffee-house, Charing Cross"
(Post-Man, October 23, 1703).
[93] Dr. Clark, "sworn physician and oculist to King Charles and King James
II.," advertised that his "ophthalmic secret" could be had from his house in Old
Southampton Buildings, Holborn (Post-Man, August 24-26, 1710).
[94] See No. 9.
[95] "A noble electuary, which ... makes the heart merry, restores, strengthens,
and adds life, courage, and vigour to either men or women, to a miracle.... Is to
be had only at Mr. Spooner's, at the Golden Half Moon, in Lemon Street, in
Goodman's Fields, at 5s. a pot, with directions" (Daily Courant, September 15,
1710).
[96] "Ass's milk to be had at Richard Stout's, at the sign of the Ass, at
Knightsbridge, for three shillings and sixpence per quart; the ass to be brought to
the buyer's door" (Post-Boy, December 6, 1711).
[97] This and other similar advertisements appeared in the Daily Courant for
September 6, 1710.
[98] "Whereas I, Michael Parrot, have had brought away a worm of sixteen feet
long, by taking the medicines of J. Moore, apothecary, in Abchurch Lane,
London; witness my hand, Michael Parrot. Witness, Anth. Spyer" (Post-Boy,
April 27-29, 1710).
[99] The True Spanish Blacking was advertised in opposition to "London Fucus
for Shoes."
[100] "An incomparable beautifying cream for the face, neck, and hands; takes
away all freckles, spots, pimples, wrinkles, roughness, scurf, yellowness, sun-
burning; renders the skin admirably clear, fair, and beautiful; has an excellent
pretty scent; is very safe and harmless, and vastly transcends all other things; for

it truly nourishes the skin, making it instantly look plump, fresh, smooth, and
delicately fair, though before wrinkled and discoloured. Sold only at Mr.
Lawrence's Toy Shop at the Griffin, the corner of the Poultry near Cheapside, at
2s. 6d. a gallipot, with directions" (Tatler, No. 140).
[101] "Nectar and Ambrosia, the highest cordial in the world, being prepared
from the richest spices, herbs, and flowers, and drawn from right brandy,
comforting the stomach, immediately digesting anything that offends, cherishing
the heart, fortifying the brain, and so cheers the spirits, that it makes the whole
body lively, brisk, and vigorous. This is the cordial dram that the Czar of
Muscovy so highly approved of. Sold in 1s. and 2s. bottles by some one person
in many cities and county towns; and by wholesale by J. Hows, in Ram-head
Innyard, Fenchurch Street, London" (Merlinus Liberatus; Partridge's Almanac
for 1699).
[102] "Twenty freehold tenements to be sold, lying in Wapping.... Inquire at the
Union Coffee-house, at King Edward's Stairs, in Wapping" (Tatler, No. 215).
[103] "Anglia Notitia; or, The Present State of England," was begun by Edward
Chamberlayn in 1669, and was continued for a number of years by his son, John
Chamberlayn, who died in 1724.
[104] "This day is published, 'Learned Annotations on the Tatler,' Part I. Printed
for B. Lintott" (Daily Courant, August 31, 1710).
[105] I cannot find any notice in the London Gazette or elsewhere of the
bankruptcy of Bernard Lintott, who is no doubt here referred to. It almost seems
as if Addison inserted the initials of the flourishing bookseller in retaliation for
the publication by Lintott of the satirical "Annotations on the Tatler."

No. 225. [Steele.
From Thursday, Sept. 14, to Saturday, Sept. 16,
1710.

——Si quid novisti rectius istis,
Candidus imperti; si non, his utere mecum.

Hor., 1 Ep. vi. 67.

From my own Apartment, Sept. 15.

he hours which we spend in conversation are the most pleasing of any
T which we enjoy; yet, methinks, there is very little care taken to improve
ourselves for the frequent repetition of them. The common fault in this
case, is that of growing too intimate, and falling into displeasing
familiarities: for it is a very ordinary thing for men to make no other use of
a close acquaintance with each other's affairs, but to tease one another with
unacceptable allusions. One would pass over patiently such as converse like
animals, and salute each other with bangs on the shoulder, sly raps with
canes, or other robust pleasantries practised by the rural gentry of this
nation: but even among those who should have more polite ideas of things,
you see a set of people who invert the design of conversation, and make
frequent mention of ungrateful subjects; nay, mention them because they
are ungrateful; as if the perfection of society were in knowing how to
offend on the one part, and how to bear an offence on the other. In all parts
of this populous town you find the merry world made up of an active and a
passive companion; one who has good-nature enough to suffer all his friend
shall think fit to say, and one who is resolved to make the most of his good-
humour to show his parts. In the trading part of mankind, I have ever
observed the jest went by the weight of purses, and the ridicule is made up
by the gains which arise from it. Thus the packer allows the clothier to say
what he pleases, and the broker has his countenance ready to laugh with the

merchant, though the abuse is to fall on himself, because he knows that, as a
go-between, he shall find his account in being in the good graces of a man
of wealth. Among these just and punctual people, the richest man is ever the
better jester; and they know no such thing as a person who shall pretend to a
superior laugh at a man, who does not make him amends by opportunities
of advantage in another kind: but among people of a different way, where
the pretended distinction in company is only what is raised from sense and
understanding, it is very absurd to carry on a rough raillery so far, as that
the whole discourse should turn upon each other's infirmities, follies, or
misfortunes.
I was this evening with a set of wags of this class. They appear generally by
two and two; and what is most extraordinary, is, that those very persons
who are most together, appear least of a mind when joined by other
company. This evil proceeds from an indiscreet familiarity, whereby a man
is allowed to say the most grating thing imaginable to another, and it shall
be accounted weakness to show an impatience for the unkindness. But this
and all other deviations from the design of pleasing each other when we
meet, are derived from interlopers in society, who want capacity to put in a
stock among regular companions, and therefore supply their wants by stale
histories, sly observations, and rude hints, which relate to the conduct of
others. All cohabitants in general run into this unhappy fault; men and their
wives break into reflections which are like so much Arabic to the rest of the
company; sisters and brothers often make the like figure from the same
unjust sense of the art of being intimate and familiar. It is often said, such a
one cannot stand the mention of such a circumstance: if he cannot, I am
sure it is for want of discourse, or a worse reason, that any companion of his
touches upon it.
Familiarity, among the truly well-bred, never gives authority to trespass
upon one another in the most minute circumstance, but it allows to be
kinder than we ought otherwise presume to be. Eusebius has wit, humour,
and spirit; but there never was a man in his company who wished he had
less, for he understands familiarity so well, that he knows how to make use
of it in a way that neither makes himself or his friend contemptible; but if
any one is lessened by his freedom, it is he himself, who always likes the
place, the diet, and the reception, when he is in the company of his friends.
Equality is the life of conversation; and he is as much out who assumes to

himself any part above another, as he who considers himself below the rest
of the society. Familiarity in inferiors is sauciness; in superiors,
condescension; neither of which are to have being among companions, the
very word implying that they are to be equal. When therefore we have
abstracted the company from all considerations of their quality or fortune, it
will immediately appear, that to make it happy and polite, there must
nothing be started which shall discover that our thoughts run upon any such
distinctions. Hence it will arise, that benevolence must become the rule of
society, and he that is most obliging must be most diverting.
This way of talking I am fallen into from the reflection that I am wherever I
go entertained with some absurdity, mistake, weakness, or ill luck of some
man or other, whom not only I, but the person who makes me those
relations has a value for. It would therefore be a great benefit to the world,
if it could be brought to pass that no story should be a taking one, but what
was to the advantage of the person of whom it is related. By this means, he
that is now a wit in conversation, would be considered as a spreader of false
news is in business.
But above all, to make a familiar fit for a bosom friend, it is absolutely
necessary that we should always be inclined rather to hide than rally each
other's infirmities. To suffer for a fault is a sort of atonement; and nobody is
concerned for the offence for which he has made reparation.
P.S.—I have received the following letter, which rallies me for being witty
sooner than I designed; but I have now altered my resolution, and intend to
be facetious till the day in October heretofore mentioned, instead of
beginning for that day.[106]

Sept. 6, 1710.
"Mr. Bickerstaff,
y your own reckoning, you came yesterday about a month before the
"B time you looked yourself, much to the satisfaction of
"Your most obliged
"Humble Servant,

"Plain English."

St. James's Coffee-house, Sept. 15.

dvices from Madrid of the 8th say, the Duke of Anjou, with his Court,
A and all the Councils, were preparing to leave that place in a day or
two, in order to remove to Valladolid. They add, that the palace was
already unfurnished, and a declaration had been published, importing, that it
was absolutely necessary, in the present conjuncture of affairs, that the
Court were absent for some time from Madrid, but would return thither in
six weeks. This sudden departure is attributed to the advice that the
Portuguese army was in motion to enter Spain by Braganza, and that his
Catholic Majesty was on the march with a strong detachment towards
Castille. Two thousand horse were arrived at Agreda, and it is reported they
were to join the rest of the body, with the King, and advance to Calatayud,
on their way to Madrid, whilst General Staremberg observed the enemy on
the frontier of Navarre. They write from Bayonne, that the Duke of
Vendôme set forwards to Spain on the 14th.

FOOTNOTES:
[106] See No. 217.

No. 226. [Addison.
From Saturday, Sept. 16, to Tuesday, Sept. 19, 1710.

----Juvenis quondam, nunc femina, Cænis,
Rursus et in veterem fato revoluta figuram.

Virg., Æn. vi. 448.

From my own Apartment, Sept. 18.

t is one of the designs of this paper to transmit to posterity an account of
I everything that is monstrous in my own times. For this reason I shall here
publish to the world the life of a person who was neither man nor
woman, as written by one of my ingenious correspondents, who seems to
have imitated Plutarch in that multifarious erudition, and those occasional
dissertations, which he has wrought into the body of his history. The Life I
am putting out, is that of Margery, alias John Young, commonly known by
the name of Dr. Young, who (as the town very well knows) was a woman
that practised physic in man's clothes, and after having had two wives and
several children, died about a month since.

"Sir,
here make bold to trouble you with a short account of the famous Dr.
"I Young's life, which you may call (if you please) a second part of the
farce of the 'Sham Doctor.' This perhaps will not seem so strange to
you, who (if I am not mistaken) have somewhere mentioned with honour
your sister Kirleus[107] as a practitioner both in physic and astrology: but in
the common opinion of mankind, a she-quack is altogether as strange and
astonishing a creature as the centaur that practised physic in the days of

Achilles, or as King Phys in 'The Rehearsal.'[108] Æsculapius, the great
founder of your art, was particularly famous for his beard, as we may
conclude from the behaviour of a tyrant who is branded by heathen
historians as guilty both of sacrilege and blasphemy, having robbed the
statue of Æsculapius of a thick bushy golden beard, and then alleged for his
excuse, that it was a shame the son should have a beard when his father
Apollo had none. This latter instance indeed seems something to favour a
female professor, since (as I have been told) the ancient statues of Apollo
are generally made with the head and face of a woman: nay, I have been
credibly informed by those who have seen them both, that the famous
Apollo in the Belvedere did very much resemble Dr. Young. Let that be as it
will, the doctor was a kind of Amazon in physic, that made as great
devastations and slaughters as any of our chief heroes in the art, and was as
fatal to the English in these our days, as the famous Joan d'Arc was in those
of our forefathers.
"I do not find anything remarkable in the Life I am about to write till the
year 1695, at which time the doctor, being about twenty-three years old,
was brought to bed of a bastard child. The scandal of such a misfortune
gave so great uneasiness to pretty Mrs. Peggy (for that was the name by
which the doctor was then called), that she left her family, and followed her
lover to London, with a fixed resolution some way or other to recover her
lost reputation: but instead of changing her life, which one would have
expected from so good a disposition of mind, she took it in her head to
change her sex. This was soon done by the help of a sword and a pair of
breeches. I have reason to believe, that her first design was to turn man-
midwife, having herself had some experience in those affairs: but thinking
this too narrow a foundation for her future fortune, she at length bought her
a gold button coat, and set up for a physician. Thus we see the same fatal
miscarriage in her youth made Mrs. Young a doctor, that formerly made one
of the same sex a Pope.
"The doctor succeeded very well in his business at first, but very often met
with accidents that disquieted him. As he wanted that deep magisterial voice
which gives authority to a prescription, and is absolutely necessary for the
right pronouncing of those words, 'Take these pills,' he unfortunately got the
nickname of the Squeaking Doctor. If this circumstance alarmed the doctor,
there was another that gave him no small disquiet, and very much

diminished his gains. In short, he found himself run down as a superficial
prating quack in all families that had at the head of them a cautious father or
a jealous husband. These would often complain among one another, that
they did not like such a smock-faced physician; though in truth had they
known how justly he deserved that name, they would rather have favoured
his practice than have apprehended anything from it.
"Such were the motives that determined Mrs. Young to change her
condition, and take in marriage a virtuous young woman, who lived with
her in good reputation, and made her the father of a very pretty girl. But this
part of her happiness was soon after destroyed by a distemper which was
too hard for our physician, and carried off his first wife. The doctor had not
been a widow long before he married his second lady, with whom also he
lived in very good understanding. It so happened that the doctor was with
child at the same time that his lady was; but the little ones coming both
together, they passed for twins. The doctor having entirely established the
reputation of his manhood, especially by the birth of the boy of whom he
had been lately delivered, and who very much resembles him, grew into
good business, and was particularly famous for the cure of venereal
distempers; but would have had much more practice among his own sex,
had not some of them been so unreasonable as to demand certain proofs of
their cure, which the doctor was not able to give them. The florid blooming
look, which gave the doctor some uneasiness at first, instead of betraying
his person, only recommended his physic. Upon this occasion I cannot
forbear mentioning what I thought a very agreeable surprise in one of
Molière's plays, where a young woman applies herself to a sick person in
the habit of a quack, and speaks to her patient, who was something
scandalised at the youth of his physician, to the following purpose: 'I began
to practise in the reign of Francis I., and am now in the hundred-and-fiftieth
year of my age; but, by the virtue of my medicaments, have maintained
myself in the same beauty and freshness I had at fifteen.' For this reason
Hippocrates lays it down as a rule, that a student in physic should have a
sound constitution and a healthy look, which indeed seem as necessary
qualifications for a physician as a good life and virtuous behaviour for a
divine. But to return to our subject. About two years ago the doctor was
very much afflicted with the vapours, which grew upon him to such a
degree, that about six weeks since they made an end of him. His death
discovered the disguise he had acted under, and brought him back again to

his former sex. 'Tis said, that at his burial the pall was held up by six women
of some fashion. The doctor left behind him a widow and two fatherless
children, if they may be called so, besides the little boy before mentioned;
in relation to whom we may say of the doctor, as the good old ballad about
the 'Children in the Wood' says of the unnatural uncle, that he was father
and mother both in one. These are all the circumstances that I could learn of
Dr. Young's life, which might have given occasion to many obscene
fictions: but as I know those would never have gained a place in your paper,
I have not troubled you with any impertinence of that nature; having stuck
to the truth very scrupulously, as I always do when I subscribe myself,
"Sir,
"
Your, &c.
"I shall add, as a postscript to this letter, that I am informed, the famous
Saltero,[109] who sells coffee in his museum at Chelsea, has by him a
curiosity which helped the doctor to carry on his imposture, and will give
great satisfaction to the curious inquirer."

FOOTNOTES:
[107] See No. 14.
[108] The Physician was one of the usurping Kings of Brentford.
[109] See No. 34

No. 227. [Steele.
From Tuesday, Sept. 19, to Thursday, Sept. 21,
1710.
Omnibus invideas, Zoile,[110] nemo tibi.—Martial, Epig. i. 40.

From my own Apartment, Sept. 20.

t is the business of reason and philosophy to soothe and allay the
I passions of the mind, or turn them to a vigorous prosecution of what is
dictated by the understanding. In order to this good end, I would keep a
watchful eye upon the growing inclinations of youth, and be particularly
careful to prevent their indulging themselves in such sentiments as may
embitter their more advanced age. I have now under cure a young
gentleman, who lately communicated to me, that he was of all men living
the most miserably envious. I desired the circumstances of his distemper;
upon which, with a sigh that would have moved the most inhuman breast:
"Mr. Bickerstaff," said he, "I am nephew to a gentleman of a very great
estate, to whose favour I have a cousin that has equal pretensions with
myself. This kinsman of mine is a young man of the highest merit
imaginable, and has a mind so tender and so generous, that I can observe he
returns my envy with pity. He makes me upon all occasions the most
obliging condescensions: and I cannot but take notice of the concern he is in
to see my life blasted with this racking passion, though it is against himself.
In the presence of my uncle, when I am in the room, he never speaks so
well as he is capable of, but always lowers his talents and accomplishments
out of regard to me. What I beg of you, dear sir, is to instruct me how to
love him, as I know he does me; and I beseech you, if possible, to set my
heart right, that it may no longer be tormented where it should be pleased,
or hate a man whom I cannot but approve."
The patient gave me this account with such candour and openness, that I
conceived immediate hopes of his cure; because in diseases of the mind the
person affected is half recovered when he is sensible of his distemper. "Sir,"

said I, "the acknowledgment of your kinsman's merit is a very hopeful
symptom; for it is the nature of persons afflicted with this evil, when they
are incurable, to pretend a contempt of the person envied, if they are taxed
with that weakness. A man who is really envious will not allow he is so; but
upon such an accusation is tormented with the reflection, that to envy a man
is to allow him your superior. But in your case, when you examine the
bottom of your heart, I am apt to think it is avarice which you mistake for
envy. Were it not that you have both expectations from the same man, you
would look upon your cousin's accomplishments with pleasure. You that
now consider him as an obstacle to your interest, would then behold him as
an ornament to your family." I observed my patient upon this occasion
recover himself in some measure; and he owned to me, that he hoped it was
as I imagined; for that in all places but where he was his rival, he had
pleasure in his company. This was the first discourse we had upon this
malady; and I do not doubt but, after two or three more, I shall by just
degrees soften his envy into emulation.
Such an envy as I have here described may possibly creep into an
ingenuous mind; but the envy which makes a man uneasy to himself and
others, is a certain distortion and perverseness of temper, that renders him
unwilling to be pleased with anything without him that has either beauty or
perfection in it. I look upon it as a distemper in the mind (which I know no
moralist that has described in this light), when a man cannot discern
anything which another is master of that is agreeable. For which reason I
look upon the good-natured man to be endowed with a certain discerning
faculty which the envious are altogether deprived of. Shallow wits,
superficial critics, and conceited fops are with me so many blind men in
respect of excellences. They can behold nothing but faults and blemishes,
and indeed see nothing that is worth seeing. Show them a poem, it is stuff; a
picture, it is daubing. They find nothing in architecture that is not irregular,
or in music that is not out of tune. These men should consider, that it is their
envy which deforms everything, and that the ugliness is not in the object,
but in the eye. And as for nobler minds, whose merits are either not
discovered, or are misrepresented by the envious part of mankind, they
should rather consider their defamers with pity than indignation. A man
cannot have an idea of perfection in another which he was never sensible of
in himself. Mr. Locke tells us, that upon asking a blind man, what he
thought scarlet was, he answered, that he believed it was like the sound of a

trumpet. He was forced to form his conceptions of ideas which he had not
by those which he had. In the same manner, ask an envious man, what he
thinks of virtue? he will call it design: what of good-nature? and he will
term it dulness. The difference is, that as the person before mentioned was
born blind, your envious men have contracted the distemper themselves,
and are troubled with a sort of an acquired blindness. Thus the devil in
Milton, though made an angel of light, could see nothing to please him even
in Paradise, and hated our first parents, though in their state of innocence.
[111]

FOOTNOTES:
[110] "Livide" (Martial).
[111] "Paradise Lost," iv. 358 seq.

No. 228. [Steele.
From Thursday, Sept. 21, to Saturday, Sept. 23,
1710.

----Veniet manus, auxilio quæ
Sit mihi——

Hor., 1 Sat. iv. 141.

From my own Apartment, Sept. 22.

man of business who makes a public entertainment, may sometimes
A leave his guests, and beg them to divert themselves as well as they can
till his return. I shall here make use of the same privilege (being
engaged in matters of some importance relating to the family of the
Bickerstaffs), and must desire my readers to entertain one another till I can
have leisure to attend them. I have therefore furnished out this paper, as I
have done some few others, with letters of my ingenious correspondents,
which I have reason to believe will please the public as much as my own
more elaborate lucubrations.

Lincoln, Sept. 9.
"Sir,
have long been of the number of your admirers, and take this
"I opportunity of telling you so. I know not why a man so famed for
astrological observations may not be also a good casuist, upon which
presumption 'tis I ask your advice in an affair that at present puzzles quite
that slender stock of divinity I am master of. I have now been some time in
holy orders, and fellow of a certain college in one of the universities; but

weary of that inactive life, I resolve to be doing good in my generation. A
worthy gentleman has lately offered me a fat rectory, but means, I perceive,
his kinswoman should have the benefit of the clergy. I am a novice in the
world, and confess, it startles me how the body of Mrs. Abigail can be
annexed to cure of souls. Sir, would you give us in one of your Tatlers the
original and progress of smock-simony, and show us, that where the laws
are silent, men's consciences ought to be so too; you could not more oblige
our fraternity of young divines, and among the rest,
"Your humble Servant,
"High Church."
I am very proud of having a gentleman of this name for my admirer, and
may some time or other write such a treatise as he mentions. In the
meantime I do not see why our clergy, who are very frequently men of good
families, should be reproached if any of them chance to espouse a handmaid
with a rectory in commendam, since the best of our peers have often joined
themselves to the daughters of very ordinary tradesmen upon the same
valuable considerations.

"Globe in Moorfields,
Sept. 16.
"Honoured Son,
have now finished my almanac for the next year, in all the parts of it
"I except that which concerns the weather; and you having shown
yourself, by some of your late works,[112] more weather-wise than any
of our modern astrologers, I most humbly presume to trouble you upon this
head. You know very well, that in our ordinary almanacs, the wind and rain,
snow and hail, clouds and sunshine, have their proper seasons, and come up
as regularly in their several months as the fruits and plants of the earth.[113]
As for my own part, I freely own to you that I generally steal my weather
out of some antiquated almanac that foretold it several years ago. Now, sir,
what I humbly beg of you is, that you would lend me your State weather-
glass, in order to fill up this vacant column in my works. This, I know,

would sell my almanac beyond any other, and make me a richer man than
Poor Robin.[114] If you will not grant me this favour, I must have recourse
to my old method, and will copy after an almanac which I have by me, and
which I think was made for the year when the great storm was. I am,
"Sir,
"The most humble of
"Your Admirers,
"T. Philomath."
This gentleman does not consider, what a strange appearance his almanac
would make to the ignorant, should he transpose his weather, as he must do,
did he follow the dictates of my glass. What would the world say to see
summers filled with clouds and storms, and winters with calms and
sunshine, according to the variations of the weather, as they might
accidentally appear in a State barometer? But let that be as it will, I shall
apply my own invention to my own use; and if I do not make my fortune by
it, it will be my own fault.
The next letter comes to me from another self-interested solicitor.

"Mr. Bickerstaff,
am going to set up for a scrivener, and have thought of a project which
"I may turn both to your account and mine. It came into my head upon
reading that learned and useful paper of yours concerning
advertisements.[115] You must understand, I have made myself master in the
whole art of advertising, both as to the style and the letter. Now if you and I
could so manage it, that nobody should write advertisements besides
myself, or print them anywhere but in your paper, we might both of us get
estates in a little time. For this end I would likewise propose, that you
should enlarge the design of advertisements, and have sent you two or three
samples of my work in this kind, which I have made for particular friends,
and intend to open shop with. The first is for a gentleman, who would
willingly marry, if he could find a wife to his liking; the second is for a poor

Whig, who is lately turned out of his post; and the third for a person of a
contrary party, who is willing to get into one.

"'Whereas A. B., next door to the "Pestle and Mortar," being about thirty
years old, of a spare make, with dark-coloured hair, bright eyes, and a long
nose, has occasion for a good-humoured, tall, fair, young woman, of about
£3000 fortune: these are to give notice, that if any such young woman has a
mind to dispose of herself in marriage to such a person as the above-
mentioned, she may be provided with a husband, a coach and horses, and a
proportionable settlement.'
"'C. D., designing to quit his place, has great quantities of paper, parchment,
ink, wax, and wafers to dispose of, which will be sold at very reasonable
rates.'
"'E. F., a person of good behaviour, six foot high, of a black complexion and
sound principles, wants an employ. He is an excellent penman and
accountant, and speaks French.'"

FOOTNOTES:
[112] Nos. 214 and 220.
[113] "Next Tuesday morning will be published the account of the alterations of
wind and weather, by the discoveries of the portable barometer; from what
quarter the wind will blow, clouds or rain, wind and weather, clear and cloudy,
wet and dry, come every day and night for the month of October, all over
England, and also when the quicksilver weather-glasses will rise in wet, and sink
in fair weather, and rise and sink without any alteration at all. Whereas there was
a false impression of the last month, to the great damage of the author, who has
been at vast charge and expense to being so useful an invention to perfection,
and to prevent the like for the future, it is hoped that those ingenious persons
who are lovers of so useful a discovery will not encourage the false one, the true
one being only to be had at W. Hawes, at the Rose in Ludgate Street, and A.
Baldwin in Warwick Lane, where they shall be sent to any gentleman, if desired,
monthly" (Post-Man, September 26, 1700). These "barometer papers" are
ridiculed in The Infallible Astrologer, a paper published in 1700.
[114] This almanac was first published in 1663. The title of it was assumed in
ridicule of Dr. Robert Pory, a pluralist of the last century, who, amongst other
preferments (such as the archdeaconry of Middlesex, a residentiaryship of St.

Paul's, &c.), enjoyed the rectory of Lambeth. Pory died in 1669, and "Poor
Robin's Almanac" professed to bear his imprimatur (see Wood's "Fasti," Part II.,
col. 267).
[115] No. 224.

No. 229. [Addison.
From Saturday, Sept. 23, to Tuesday, Sept. 26,
1710.

——Sume superbiam
Quæsitam meritis——

Hor., 3 Od. xxx. 14.

From my own Apartment, Sept. 25.

he whole creation preys upon itself: every living creature is inhabited.
T A flea has a thousand invisible insects that tease him as he jumps from
place to place, and revenge our quarrels upon him. A very ordinary
microscope shows us that a louse is itself a very lousy creature. A whale,
besides those seas and oceans in the several vessels of his body, which are
filled with innumerable shoals of little animals, carries about it a whole
world of inhabitants; insomuch that, if we believe the calculations some
have made, there are more living creatures which are too small for the
naked eye to behold about the leviathan, than there are of visible creatures
upon the face of the whole earth. Thus every nobler creature is as it were
the basis and support of multitudes that are his inferiors.
This consideration very much comforts me, when I think on those
numberless vermin that feed upon this paper, and find their sustenance out
of it: I mean, the small wits and scribblers that every day turn a penny by
nibbling at my Lucubrations. This has been so advantageous to this little
species of writers, that, if they do me justice, I may expect to have my
statue erected in Grub Street, as being a common benefactor to that quarter.
They say, when a fox is very much troubled with fleas, he goes into the next
pool with a little lock of wool in his mouth, and keeps his body under water
till the vermin get into it, after which he quits the wool, and diving, leaves

his tormentors to shift for themselves, and get their livelihood where they
can. I would have these gentlemen take care that I do not serve them after
the same manner; for though I have hitherto kept my temper pretty well, it
is not impossible but I may some time or other disappear; and what will
then become of them? Should I lay down my paper, what a famine would
there be among the hawkers, printers, booksellers, and authors? It would be
like Dr. B——'s[116] dropping his cloak, with the whole congregation
hanging upon the skirts of it. To enumerate some of these my doughty
antagonists, I was threatened to be answered weekly Tit for Tat: I was
undermined by the Whisperer, haunted by Tom Brown's Ghost, scolded at
by a Female Tatler, and slandered by another of the same character, under
the title of Atalantis. I have been annotated, re-tattled, examined, and
condoled;[117] but it being my standing maxim never to speak ill of the
dead, I shall let these authors rest in peace, and take great pleasure in
thinking that I have sometimes been the means of their getting a bellyful.
When I see myself thus surrounded by such formidable enemies, I often
think of the Knight of the Red Cross in Spenser's "Den of Error," who after
he has cut off the dragon's head, and left it wallowing in a flood of ink, sees
a thousand monstrous reptiles making their attempts upon him, one with
many heads, another with none, and all of them without eyes.

The same so sore annoyèd has the knight,
That well-nigh chokèd with the deadly stink,
His forces fail, he can no longer fight;
Whose courage when the fiend perceived to shrink,
She pourèd forth out of her hellish sink
Her fruitful cursèd spawn of serpents small,
Deformèd monsters, foul, and black as ink;
Which swarming all about his legs did crawl,
And him encumbered sore, but could not hurt at all.

As gentle shepherd in sweet eventide,
When ruddy Phœbus 'gins to welk in West,
High on an hill, his flock to viewen wide,
Marks which do bite their hasty supper best;
A cloud of cumbrous gnats do him molest,
All striving to infix their feeble stings,
That from their 'noyance he nowhere can rest;
But with his clownish hands their tender wings
He brusheth oft, and oft doth mar their murmurings.[118]

If ever I should want such a fry of little authors to attend me, I shall think
my paper in a very decaying condition. They are like ivy about an oak,
which adorns the tree at the same time that it eats into it; or like a great
man's equipage, that do honour to the person on whom they feed. For my
part, when I see myself thus attacked, I do not consider my antagonists as
malicious, but hungry, and therefore am resolved never to take any notice of
them.
As for those who detract from my labours without being prompted to it by
an empty stomach, in return to their censures I shall take pains to excel, and
never fail to persuade myself, that their enmity is nothing but their envy or
ignorance.
Give me leave to conclude, like an old man and a moralist, with a fable:
The owls, bats, and several other birds of night, were one day got together
in a thick shade, where they abused their neighbours in a very sociable
manner. Their satire at last fell upon the sun, whom they all agreed to be

very troublesome, impertinent, and inquisitive. Upon which the sun, who
overheard them, spoke to them after this manner: "Gentlemen, I wonder
how you dare abuse one that you know could in an instant scorch you up,
and burn every mother's son of you: but the only answer I shall give you, or
the revenge I shall take of you, is, to shine on."[119]

FOOTNOTES:
[116] Daniel Burgess (see No. 66).
[117] The first number of Tit for Tat appeared under the name of Jo. Partridge,
Esq., on March 2, 1710, with an announcement of Bickerstaff's death; probably
it reached only to five numbers. Of the Whisperer (October 11, 1709), and the
Gazette à-la-Mode, or Tom Brown's Ghost (May 12, 1709), only single numbers
are known. The Female Tatler, issued by Thomas Baker, lasted from July 8,
1709, to March 31, 1710; and there was a rival paper, with the same title, printed
for A Baldwin. The "New Atalantis," Mrs. Manley's well-known book, contained
more than one attack on Steele. "Annotated" refers to the satirical "Annotations
upon the Tatler," 1710 (see No. 224); and "condoled," to a pamphlet, "A
Condoling Letter to the Tatler; on account of the misfortunes of Isaac
Bickerstaff, a prisoner in the —— on suspicion of debt" (September 19, 1710).
The Tory Examiner had much to say about the Tatler and Steele's subsequent
writings. Nothing is known of a Re-Tatler.
"For my part," wrote Defoe, "I have always thought that the weakest step the
Tatler ever took, if that complete author can be said to have done anything weak,
was to stoop to take the least notice of the barkings of the animals that have
condoled him, examined him, &c. He should have let every bark and fool rail,
and, according to his own observation of the fable of the sun, continued to shine
on. This I have found to be agreeable to the true notion of contempt. Silence is
the utmost slight nature can dictate to a man, and the most insupportable for a
vain man to bear."
[118] "Faërie Queene," 1. i. 22, 23.
[119] See No. 239.

No. 230. [Steele and Swift.
From Tuesday, Sept. 26, to Thursday, Sept. 28,
1710.
From my own Apartment, Sept. 27.

he following letter has laid before me many great and manifest evils in
T the world of letters which I had overlooked; but they open to me a very
busy scene, and it will require no small care and application to amend
errors which are become so universal. The affectation of politeness is
exposed in this epistle with a great deal of wit and discernment; so that
whatever discourses I may fall into hereafter upon the subjects the writer
treats of, I shall at present lay the matter before the world without the least
alteration from the words of my correspondent.[120]

To Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq.
"Sir,
here are some abuses among us of great consequence, the
"T reformation of which is properly your province; though as far as I
have been conversant in your papers, you have not yet considered
them. These are the deplorable ignorance that for some years hath reigned
among our English writers, the great depravity of our taste, and the
continual corruption of our style. I say nothing here of those who handle
particular sciences, divinity, law, physic, and the like; I mean the traders in
history and politics, and the belles lettres; together with those by whom
books are not translated, but (as the common expressions are) done out of
French, Latin, or other language, and made English. I cannot but observe to
you, that till of late years a Grub Street book was always bound in
sheepskin, with suitable print and paper, the price never above a shilling,
and taken off wholly by common tradesmen or country pedlars; but now

they appear in all sizes and shapes, and in all places. They are handed about
from lapfuls in every coffee-house to persons of quality; are shown in
Westminster Hall and the Court of Requests. You may see them gilt and in
royal paper of five or six hundred pages, and rated accordingly. I would
engage to furnish you with a catalogue of English books published within
the compass of seven years past, which at the first hand would cost you a
hundred pounds, wherein you shall not be able to find ten lines together of
common grammar or common sense.
"These two evils, ignorance and want of taste, have produced a third; I
mean the continual corruption of our English tongue, which, without some
timely remedy, will suffer more by the false refinements of twenty years
past than it hath been improved in the foregoing hundred. And this is what I
design chiefly to enlarge upon, leaving the former evils to your
animadversion.
"But instead of giving you a list of the late refinements crept into our
language, I here send you the copy of a letter I received some time ago from
a most accomplished person in this way of writing; upon which I shall make
some remarks. It is in these terms:
"'Sir,
cou'dn't get the things you sent for all about town. I thôt to ha' come
"'I down myself, and then I'd h' bôt 'um; but I ha'n't don't, and I believe I
can't d't, that's pozz. Tom[121] begins to gi'mself airs, because he's
going with the plenipo's. 'Tis said the French King will bamboozl' us agen,
which causes many speculations. The Jacks and others of that kidney are
very uppish, and alert upon't, as you may see by their phizz's. Will Hazzard
has got the hipps, having lost to the tune of five hundr'd pound, thô he
understands play very well, nobody better. He has promis't me upon rep, to
leave off play; but you know 'tis a weakness he's too apt to give into, thô he
has as much wit as any man, nobody more. He has lain incog. ever since.
The mobb's very quiet with us now. I believe you thôt I bantr'd you in my
last like a country put. I shan't leave town this month,' &c.
"This letter is in every point an admirable pattern of the present polite way
of writing, nor is it of less authority for being an epistle: you may gather
every flower in it, with a thousand more of equal sweetness, from the
books, pamphlets, and single papers, offered us every day in the coffee-

houses: and these are the beauties introduced to supply the want of wit,
sense, humour, and learning, which formerly were looked upon as
qualifications for a writer. If a man of wit, who died forty years ago, were to
rise from the grave on purpose, how would he be able to read this letter?
And after he had got through that difficulty, how would he be able to
understand it? The first thing that strikes your eye is the breaks at the end of
almost every sentence, of which I know not the use, only that it is a
refinement, and very frequently practised. Then you will observe the
abbreviations and elisions, by which consonants of most obdurate sound are
joined together, without one softening vowel to intervene; and all this only
to make one syllable of two, directly contrary to the example of the Greeks
and Romans, altogether of the Gothic strain, and a natural tendency towards
relapsing into barbarity, which delights in monosyllables, and uniting of
mute consonants, as it is observable in all the Northern languages. And this
is still more visible in the next refinement, which consists in pronouncing
the first syllable in a word that has many, and dismissing the rest; such as
phizz, hipps, mobb, pozz, rep, and many more, when we are already
overloaded with monosyllables, which are the disgrace of our language.
Thus we cram one syllable, and cut off the rest, as the owl fattened her mice
after she had bit off their legs, to prevent them from running away; and if
ours be the same reason for maiming our words, it will certainly answer the
end, for I am sure no other nation will desire to borrow them. Some words
are hitherto but fairly split, and therefore only in their way to perfection, as
incog. and plenipo; but in a short time, 'tis to be hoped, they will be further
docked to inc. and plen. This reflection has made me of late years very
impatient for a peace, which I believe would save the lives of many brave
words, as well as men. The war has introduced abundance of polysyllables,
which will never be able to live many more campaigns. Speculations,
operations, preliminaries, ambassadors, palisadoes, communication,
circumvallation, battalions, as numerous as they are, if they attack us too
frequently in our coffee-houses, we shall certainly put them to flight, and
cut off the rear.
"The third refinement observable in the letter I send you, consists in the
choice of certain words invented by some pretty fellows, such as banter,
bamboozle, country put, and kidney, as it is there applied, some of which
are now struggling for the vogue, and others are in possession of it. I have
done my utmost for some years past to stop the progress of mobb and

banter, but have been plainly borne down by numbers, and betrayed by
those who promised to assist me.
"In the last place, you are to take notice of certain choice phrases scattered
through the letter, some of them tolerable enough, till they were worn to
rags by servile imitators. You might easily find them, though they were not
in a different print, and therefore I need not disturb them.
"These are the false refinements in our style which you ought to correct:
first, by argument and fair means; but if those fail, I think you are to make
use of your authority as censor, and by an annual 'Index Expurgatorius'
expunge all words and phrases that are offensive to good sense, and
condemn those barbarous mutilations of vowels and syllables. In this last
point the usual pretence is, that they spell as they speak: a noble standard
for language! To depend upon the caprice of every coxcomb, who, because
words are the clothing of our thoughts, cuts them out and shapes them as he
pleases, and changes them oftener than his dress. I believe all reasonable
people would be content that such refiners were more sparing in their words
and liberal in their syllables: and upon this head I should be glad you would
bestow some advice upon several young readers in our churches, who
coming up from the university full fraught with admiration of our town
politeness, will needs correct the style of their prayer-books. In reading the
Absolution, they are very careful to say 'pardons' and 'absolves'; and in the
prayer for the royal family it must be 'endue 'um, enrich 'um, prosper 'um,
and bring 'um.' Then in their sermons they use all the modern terms of art:
sham, banter, mob, bubble, bully, cutting, shuffling, and palming; all which,
and many more of the like stamp, as I have heard them often in the pulpit
from such young sophisters, so I have read them in some of those sermons
that have made most noise of late. The design, it seems, is to avoid the
dreadful imputation of pedantry; to show us that they know the town,
understand men and manners, and have not been poring upon old
unfashionable books in the university.
"I should be glad to see you the instrument of introducing into our style that
simplicity which is the best and truest ornament of most things in life,
which the politer ages always aimed at in their building and dress (simplex
munditiis), as well as their productions of wit. It is manifest, that all new
affected modes of speech, whether borrowed from the court, the town, or
the theatre, are the first perishing parts in any language; and, as I could

prove by many hundred instances, have been so in ours. The writings of
Hooker, who was a country clergyman, and of Parsons the Jesuit, both in
the reign of Queen Elizabeth, are in a style that, with very few allowances,
would not offend any present reader; much more clear and intelligible than
those of Sir H. Wootton, Sir Rob. Naunton, Osborn, Daniel the historian,
and several others who wrote later; but being men of the court, and
affecting the phrases then in fashion, they are often either not to be
understood, or appear perfectly ridiculous.
"What remedies are to be applied to these evils, I have not room to consider,
having, I fear, already taken up most of your paper. Besides, I think it is our
office only to represent abuses, and yours to redress them. I am with great
respect,
"Sir,
"
Your, &c."

FOOTNOTES:
[120] Swift was author of the letter which fills the remainder of this paper. See
his "Journal to Stella," Sept. 18, 1710: "Got home early, and began a letter to the
Tatler about the corruptions of style and writing, &c." Sept. 23, 1710: "I have
sent a long letter to Bickerstaff, let the Bishop of Clogher smoke it if he can."
Sept. 29, 1710: "I made a Tatler since I came; guess which it is, and whether the
Bishop of Clogher smokes it." Oct. 1, 1710: "Have you smoked the Tatler that I
wrote? It is much liked here, and I think it a pure one."
[121] Thomas Harley, minister at the Court of Hanover, and cousin of Robert
Harley, afterwards Earl of Oxford. He died in 1737.

No. 231. [Steele.
Principiis obsta——
Ovid, Rem. Amor. 91.
From Thursday, Sept. 28, to Saturday, Sept. 30, 1710.

From my own Apartment, Sept. 29.

here are very many ill habits that might with much ease have been
T prevented, which, after we have indulged ourselves in them, become
incorrigible. We have a sort of proverbial expression, of taking a
woman down in her wedding shoes, if you would bring her to reason. An
early behaviour of this sort had a very remarkable good effect in a family
wherein I was several years an intimate acquaintance.
A gentleman in Lincolnshire[122] had four daughters, three of which were
early married very happily; but the fourth, though no way inferior to any of
her sisters, either in person or accomplishments, had from her infancy
discovered so imperious a temper (usually called a high spirit), that it
continually made great uneasiness in the family, became her known
character in the neighbourhood, and deterred all her lovers from declaring
themselves. However, in process of time, a gentleman of a plentiful fortune
and long acquaintance, having observed that quickness of spirit to be her
only fault, made his addresses, and obtained her consent in due form. The
lawyers finished the writings (in which, by the way, there was no pin-
money), and they were married. After a decent time spent in the father's
house, the bridegroom went to prepare his seat for her reception. During the
whole course of his courtship, though a man of the most equal temper, he
had artificially lamented to her, that he was the most passionate creature
breathing. By this one intimation, he at once made her understand warmth
of temper to be what he ought to pardon in her, as well as that he alarmed
her against that constitution in himself. She at the same time thought herself
highly obliged by the composed behaviour which he maintained in her
presence. Thus far he with great success soothed her from being guilty of

violences, and still resolved to give her such a terrible apprehension of his
fiery spirit, that she should never dream of giving way to her own. He
returned on the day appointed for carrying her home; but instead of a coach
and six horses, together with the gay equipage suitable to the occasion, he
appeared without a servant, mounted on the skeleton of a horse which his
huntsman had the day before brought in to feast his dogs on the arrival of
their new mistress, with a pillion fixed behind, and a case of pistols before
him, attended only by a favourite hound. Thus equipped, he in a very
obliging (but somewhat positive) manner desired his lady to seat herself on
the cushion; which done, away they crawled. The road being obstructed by
a gate, the dog was commanded to open it: the poor cur looked up and
wagged his tail; but the master, to show the impatience of his temper, drew
a pistol and shot him dead. He had no sooner done it, but he fell into a
thousand apologies for his unhappy rashness, and begged as many pardons
for his excesses before one for whom he had so profound a respect. Soon
after their steed stumbled, but with some difficulty recovered: however, the
bridegroom took occasion to swear, if he frightened his wife so again, he
would run him through: and alas! the poor animal being now almost tired,
made a second trip; immediately on which the careful husband alights, and
with great ceremony first takes off his lady, then the accoutrements, draws
his sword, and saves the huntsman the trouble of killing him: then says to
his wife, "Child, prithee take up the saddle;" which she readily did, and
tugged it home, where they found all things in the greatest order, suitable to
their fortune and the present occasion. Some time after the father of the lady
gave an entertainment to all his daughters and their husbands, where, when
the wives were retired, and the gentlemen passing a toast about, our last
married man took occasion to observe to the rest of his brethren, how much,
to his great satisfaction, he found the world mistaken as to the temper of his
lady, for that she was the most meek and humble woman breathing. The
applause was received with a loud laugh: but as a trial which of them would
appear the most master at home, he proposed they should all by turns send
for their wives down to them. A servant was despatched, and answer was
made by one, "Tell him I will come by-and-by;" another, that she would
come when the cards were out of her hand; and so on. But no sooner was
her husband's desire whispered in the ear of our last married lady, but the
cards were clapped on the table, and down she comes with, "My dear,
would you speak with me?" He receives her in his arms, and after repeated

caresses, tells her the experiment, confesses his good-nature, and assures
her, that since she could now command her temper, he would no longer
disguise his own.
I received the following letter, with a dozen of wine, and cannot but do
justice to the liquor, and give my testimony, that I have tried it upon several
of my acquaintances, who were given to impertinent abbreviations,[123] with
great success:

"Mr. Bickerstaff,
send you by this bearer, and not per bearer, a dozen of that claret
"I which is to be sold at Garraway's Coffee-house on Thursday the fifth
of October next. I can assure you, I have found by experience the
efficacy of it in amending a fault you complain of in your last. The very
first draught of it has some effect upon the speech of the drinker, and
restores all the letters taken away by the elisions so justly complained of.
Will Hazzard was cured of his hypochondria by three glasses; and the
gentleman who gave you an account of his late indisposition, has in public
company, after the first quart, spoke every syllable of the word
plenipotentiary.
"Your, &c."

FOOTNOTES:
[122] This story is simply that of Katherine and Petruchio, in "The Taming of the
Shrew," retold. It would seem that Steele was able to count upon his readers
having very little knowledge of Shakespeare.
[123] See No. 230.

No. 232. [Steele.
From Saturday Sept. 30, to Tuesday, Oct. 3, 1710.
From my own Apartment, Oct. 2.

have received the following letter from my unfortunate old acquaintance
I the upholsterer,[124] who, I observed, had long absented himself from the
bench at the upper end of the Mall. Having not seen him for some time, I
was in fear I should soon hear of his death, especially since he never
appeared, though the noons have been of late pretty warm, and the councils
at that place very full from the hour of twelve to three, which the sages of
that board employ in conference, while the unthinking part of mankind are
eating and drinking for the support of their own private persons, without
any regard to the public.

"Sir,
should have waited on you very frequently to have discoursed you
"I upon some matters of moment, but that I love to be well informed in
the subject upon which I consult my friends before I enter into debate
with them. I have therefore with the utmost care and pains applied myself to
the reading all the writings and pamphlets which have come out since the
trial,[125] and have studied night and day in order to be master of the whole
controversy; but the authors are so numerous, and the state of affairs alters
so very fast, that I am now a fortnight behindhand in my reading, and know
only how things stood twelve days ago. I wish you would enter into those
useful subjects; for, if I may be allowed to say so, these are not times to jest
in. As for my own part, you know very well, that I am of a public spirit, and
never regarded my own interest, but looked further; and let me tell you, that
while some people are minding only themselves and families, and others
are thinking only of their own country, things go on strangely in the North. I

foresee very great evils arising from the neglect of transactions at a
distance; for which reason I am now writing a letter to a friend in the
country, which I design as an answer to the Czar of Muscovy's letter to the
Grand Signior concerning his Majesty of Sweden. I have endeavoured to
prove that it is not reasonable to expect that his Swedish Majesty should
leave Bender without forty thousand men; and I have added to this an
apology for the Cossacks. But the matter multiplies upon me, and I grow
dim with much writing; therefore desire, if you have an old green pair of
spectacles, such as you used about your fiftieth year, that you send them to
me; as also, that you would please to desire Mr. Morphew to send me in a
bushel of coals on the credit of my answer to his Czarian Majesty; for I
design it shall be printed for Morphew, and the weather grows sharp. I shall
take it kindly if you would order him also to send me the papers as they
come out. If there are no fresh pamphlets published, I compute that I shall
know before the end of next month what has been done in town to this day.
If it were not for an ill custom lately introduced by a certain author, of
talking Latin at the beginning of papers, matters would be in a much clearer
light than they are; but to our comfort, there are solid writers who are not
guilty of this pedantry. The Post-Man writes like an angel: the
Moderator[126] is fine reading! It would do you no harm to read the Post-
Boy with attention; he is very deep of late. He is instructive; but I confess a
little satirical: a sharp pen! He cares not what he says. The Examiner is
admirable, and is become a grave and substantial author. But above all, I am
at a loss how to govern myself in my judgment of those whose whole
writings consist in interrogatories: and then the way of answering, by
proposing questions as hard to them, is quite as extraordinary. As for my
part, I tremble at these novelties; we expose, in my opinion, our affairs too
much by it. You may be sure the French King will spare no cost to come at
the reading of them. I dread to think if the fable of the Blackbirds should
fall into his hands. But I shall not venture to say more till I see you. In the
meantime,
"I am, &c.
"P.S.—I take the Bender letter in the Examiner to be spurious."[127]
This unhappy correspondent, whose fantastical loyalty to the King of
Sweden has reduced him to this low condition of reason and fortune, would

appear much more monstrous in his madness, did we not see crowds very
little above his circumstances from the same cause, a passion to politics.
It is no unpleasant entertainment to consider the commerce even of the
sexes interrupted by difference in State affairs. A wench and her gallant
parted last week upon the words "unlimited" and "passive": and there is
such a jargon of terms got into the mouths of the very silliest of the women,
that you cannot come into a room even among them, but you find them
divided into Whig and Tory. What heightens the humour is, that all the hard
words they know they certainly suppose to be terms useful in the disputes
of the parties. I came in this day where two were in very hot debate, and
one of them proposed to me to explain to them what was the difference
between circumcision and predestination. You may be sure I was at a loss;
but they were too angry at each other to wait for my explanation, but
proceeded to lay open the whole state of affairs, instead of the usual topics
of dress, gallantry, and scandal.
I have often wondered how it should be possible that this turn to politics
should so universally prevail, to the exclusion of every other subject out of
conversation; and upon mature consideration, find it is for want of
discourse. Look round you among all the young fellows you meet, and you
see those who have least relish for books, company, or pleasure, though
they have no manner of qualities to make them succeed in those pursuits,
shall make very passable politicians. Thus the most barren invention shall
find enough to say to make one appear an able man in the top coffee-
houses. It is but adding a certain vehemence in uttering yourself, let the
thing you say be never so flat, and you shall be thought a very sensible man,
if you were not too hot. As love and honour are the noblest motives of life;
so the pretenders to them, without being animated by them, are the most
contemptible of all sorts of pretenders. The unjust affectation of anything
that is laudable, is ignominious in proportion to the worth of the thing we
affect: thus, as love of one's country is the most glorious of all passions, to
see the most ordinary tools in a nation give themselves airs that way,
without any one good quality in their own life, has something in it romantic,
yet not so ridiculous as odious.

Advertisement.

r. Bickerstaff has received Silvia's letter from the Bath, and his sister
M is set out thither. Tom Frontley, who is one of the guides for the town,
is desired to bring her into company, and oblige her with a mention in
his next lampoon.

FOOTNOTES:
[124] See Nos. 155, 160, and 178.
[125] Sacheverell's.
[126] The Moderator, which professed to discuss the arguments of both parties
impartially, lasted from May to November 1710.
[127] No. 7 of the Examiner contained what purported to be a letter from a
Swedish officer at Bender to his friend at Stockholm.

No. 233. [Steele.
From Tuesday, Oct. 3, to Thursday, Oct. 5, 1710.

----Sunt certa piacula, quæ te
Ter pure lecto poterunt recreare libello.

Hor., 1 Ep. i. 36.

From my own Apartment, Oct. 4.

hen the mind has been perplexed with anxious cares and passions, the
W best method of bringing it to its usual state of tranquillity, is, as much
as we possibly can, to turn our thoughts to the adversities of persons
of higher consideration in virtue and merit than ourselves. By this means all
the little incidents of our own lives, if they are unfortunate, seem to be the
effect of justice upon our faults and indiscretions. When those whom we
know to be excellent and deserving of a better fate are wretched, we cannot
but resign ourselves, whom most of us know to merit a much worse state
than that we are placed in. For such and many other occasions, there is one
admirable relation which one might recommend for certain periods of one's
life, to touch, comfort, and improve the heart of man. Tully says,
somewhere, the pleasures of a husbandman are next to those of a
philosopher. In like manner one may say (for methinks they bear the same
proportion one to another), the pleasures of humanity are next to those of
devotion. In both these latter satisfactions, there is a certain humiliation
which exalts the soul above its ordinary state. At the same time that it
lessens our value of ourselves, it enlarges our estimation of others. The
history I am going to speak of, is that of Joseph in Holy Writ, which is
related with such majestic simplicity, that all the parts of it strike us with
strong touches of nature and compassion, and he must be a stranger to both
who can read it with attention, and not be overwhelmed with the
vicissitudes of joy and sorrow. I hope it will not be a profanation to tell it
one's own way here, that they who may be unthinking enough to be more

frequently readers of such papers as this than of Sacred Writ, may be
advertised, that the greatest pleasures the imagination can be entertained
with are to be found there, and that even the style of the Scriptures is more
than human.
Joseph, a beloved child of Israel, became invidious to his elder brethren, for
no other reason but his superior beauty and excellence of body and mind,
insomuch that they could not bear his growing virtue, and let him live. They
therefore conspire his death; but nature pleaded so strongly for him in the
heart of one of them, that by his persuasion they determined rather to bury
him in a pit, than be his immediate executioners with their own hands.
When thus much was obtained for him, their minds still softened towards
him, and they took the opportunity of some passengers to sell him into
Egypt. Israel was persuaded by the artifice of his sons, that the youth was
torn to pieces by wild beasts: but Joseph was sold to slavery, and still
exposed to new misfortunes, from the same cause as before, his beauty and
his virtue. By a false accusation he was committed to prison, but in process
of time delivered from it, in consideration of his wisdom and knowledge,
and made the governor of Pharaoh's house. In this elevation of his fortune,
his brothers were sent into Egypt to buy necessaries of life in a famine. As
soon as they are brought into his presence, he beholds, but he beholds with
compassion, the men who had sold him to slavery approaching him with
awe and reverence. While he was looking over his brethren, he takes a
resolution to indulge himself in the pleasure of stirring their and his own
affections, by keeping himself concealed, and examining into the
circumstances of their family. For this end, with an air of severity, as a
watchful minister to Pharaoh, he accuses them as spies, who are come into
Egypt with designs against the State. This led them into the account which
he wanted of them, the condition of their ancient father and little brother,
whom they had left behind them. When he had learned that his brother was
living, he demands the bringing him to Egypt, as a proof of their veracity.
But it would be a vain and empty endeavour to attempt laying this excellent
representation of the passions of man in the same colours as they appear in
the Sacred Writ in any other manner, or almost any other words, than those
made use of in the page itself. I am obliged therefore to turn my designed
narration rather into a comment upon the several parts of that beautiful and
passionate scene. When Joseph expects to see Benjamin, how natural and

how forcible is the reflection, "This affliction is come upon us in that we
saw the anguish of our brother's soul without pity!" How moving must it be
to Joseph to hear Reuben accuse the rest, that they would not hear what he
pleaded in behalf of his innocence and distress! He turns from them and
weeps, but commands his passion so far as to give orders for binding one of
them in the presence of the rest, while he at leisure observed their different
sentiments and concern in their gesture and countenance. When Benjamin is
demanded in bondage for stealing the cup, with what force and what
resignation does Judah address his brother!
"In what words shall I speak to my lord; with what confidence can I say
anything? Our guilt is but too apparent; we submit to our fate. We are my
lord's servants, both we and he also with whom the cup is found." When
that is not accepted, how pathetically does he recapitulate the whole story!
And approaching nearer to Joseph, delivers himself as follows; which, if we
fix our thoughts upon the relation between the pleader and the judge, it is
impossible to read without tears:
"Sir, let me intrude so far upon you, even in the high condition in which you
are, and the miserable one in which you see me and my brethren, to inform
you of the circumstances of us unhappy men that prostrate ourselves before
you. When we were first examined by you, you inquired (for what reason
my lord inquired we know not), but you inquired whether we had not a
father or a brother? We then acquainted you, that we had a father, an old
man, who had a child of his old age, and had buried another son whom he
had by the same woman. You were pleased to command us to bring the
child he had remaining down to us: we did so, and he has forfeited his
liberty. But my father said to us, 'You know that my wife bore me two sons:
one of them was torn in pieces: if mischief befall this also, it will bring my
grey hairs with sorrow to the grave. Accept, therefore, oh my lord! me for
your bondman, and let the lad return with his brethren, that I may not see
the evil that shall come on my father.' Here Joseph's passion grew too great
for further disguise, and he reveals himself with exclamations of transport
and tenderness.
"After their recovery from their first astonishment, his brethren were seized
with fear for the injuries they had done him; but how generously does he
keep them in countenance, and make an apology for them: 'Be not angry

with yourselves for selling me hither; call it not so, but think Providence
sent me before you to preserve life.'"
It would be endless to go through all the beauties of this sacred narrative;
but any who shall read it, at an hour when he is disengaged from all other
regard or interests than what arise from it, will feel the alternate passion of a
father, a brother, and a son, so warm in him, that they will incline him to
exert himself (in such of those characters as happen to be his) much above
the ordinary course of his life.

No. 234. [Steele.
From Thursday, Oct. 5, to Saturday, Oct. 7, 1710.
From my own Apartment, Oct. 6.

have reason to believe that certain of my contemporaries have made use of
I an art I some time ago professed, of being often designedly dull;[128] and for
that reason shall not exert myself when I see them lazy. He that has so much
to struggle with as the man who pretends to censure others, must keep up his
fire for an onset, and may be allowed to carry his arms a little carelessly upon
an ordinary march. This paper therefore shall be taken up by my
correspondents, two of which have sent me the two following plain, but
sensible and honest letters, upon subjects no less important than those of
education and devotion:

"Sir,[129]
am an old man, retired from all acquaintance with the town, but what I
"I have from your papers (not the worst entertainment of my solitude); yet
being still a well-wisher to my country and the commonwealth of learning
(a qua, confiteor, nullam ætatis meæ partem abhorruisse), and hoping the plain
phrase in writing that was current in my younger days would have lasted for my
time, I was startled at the picture of modern politeness transmitted by your
ingenious correspondent, and grieved to see our sterling English language fallen
into the hands of clippers and coiners. That mutilated epistle, consisting of
hipps, reps, and such-like enormous curtailings, was a mortifying spectacle, but
with the reserve of comfort to find this, and other abuses of our mother-tongue,
so pathetically complained of, and to the proper person for redressing them, the
Censor of Great Britain.
"He had before represented the deplorable ignorance that for several years past
has reigned amongst our English writers, the great depravity of our taste, and
continual corruption of our style: but, sir, before you give yourself the trouble
of prescribing remedies for these distempers (which you own will require the

greatest care and application), give me leave (having long had my eye upon
these mischiefs, and thoughts exercised about them) to mention what I humbly
conceive to be the cause of them, and in your friend Horace's words, "Quo fonte
derivata clades In patriam populumque fluxit."[130]
"I take our corrupt ways of writing to proceed from the mistakes and wrong
measures in our common methods of education, which I always looked upon as
one of our national grievances, and a singularity that renders us no less than our
situation,
——Penitus toto divisos orbe Britannos.[131]
This puts me upon consulting the most celebrated critics on that subject, to
compare our practice with their precepts, and find where it was that we came
short or went wide.
"But after all, I found our case required something more than these doctors had
directed, and the principal defect of our English discipline to lie in the initiatory
part, which, although it needs the greatest care and skill, is usually left to the
conduct of those blind guides, viz., Chance and Ignorance.
"I shall trouble you with but a single instance, pursuant to what your sagacious
friend has said, that he could furnish you with a catalogue of English books,
that would cost you a hundred pounds at first hand, wherein you could not find
ten lines together of common grammar; which is a necessary consequence of
our mismanagement in that province.
"For can anything be more absurd than our way of proceeding in this part of
literature? To push tender wits into the intricate mazes of grammar, and a Latin
grammar? To learn an unknown art by an unknown tongue? To carry them a
dark roundabout way to let them in at a back-door? Whereas by teaching them
first the grammar of their mother-tongue (so easy to be learned), their advance
to the grammars of Latin and Greek would be gradual and easy; but our
precipitate way of hurrying them over such a gulf, before we have built them a
bridge to it, is a shock to their weak understandings, which they seldom, or very
late, recover. In the meantime we wrong nature, and slander infants, who want
neither capacity nor will to learn, till we put them upon service beyond their
strength, and then indeed we baulk them.
"The liberal arts and sciences are all beautiful as the Graces, nor has Grammar
(the severe mother of all) so frightful a face of her own; it is the vizard put upon
it that scares children. She is made to speak hard words that to them sound like
conjuring. Let her talk intelligibly, and they will listen to her.

"In this, I think, as on other accounts, we show ourselves true Britons, always
overlooking our natural advantages. It has been the practice of wisest nations to
learn their own language by stated rules, to avoid the confusion that would
follow from leaving it to vulgar use. Our English tongue, says a learned man, is
the most determinate in its construction, and reducible to the fewest rules:
whatever language has less grammar in it, is not intelligible; and whatever has
more, all that it has more is superfluous; for which reasons he would have it
made the foundation of learning Latin, and all other languages.
"To speak and write without absurdity the language of one's country, is
commendable in persons of all stations, and to some indispensably necessary;
and to this purpose, I would recommend above all things the having a grammar
of our mother-tongue first taught in our schools, which would facilitate our
youths learning their Latin and Greek grammars, with spare time for arithmetic,
astronomy, cosmography, history, &c., that would make them pass the spring of
their life with profit and pleasure, that is now miserably spent in grammatical
perplexities.
"But here, methinks, I see the reader smile, and ready to ask me (as the lawyer
did sexton Diego on his bequeathing rich legacies to the poor of the parish,[132]
Where are these mighty sums to be raised?), Where is there such a grammar to
be had? I will not answer, as he did, Even where your Worship pleases. No, it is
our good fortune to have such a grammar, with notes, now in the press, and to
be published next term.
"I hear it is a chargeable work, and wish the publisher to have customers of all
that have need of such a book; yet fancy that he cannot be much a sufferer, if it
is only bought by all that have more need for it than they think they have.
"A certain author brought a poem to Mr. Cowley, for his perusal and judgment
of the performance, which he demanded at the next visit with a poetaster's
assurance; and Mr. Cowley, with his usual modesty, desired that he would be
pleased to look a little to the grammar of it. 'To the grammar of it! What do you
mean, sir? Would you send me to school again?' 'Why, Mr. H——, would it do
you any harm?'
"This put me on considering how this voyage of literature may be made with
more safety and profit, expedition and delight; and at last, for completing so
good a service, to request your directions in so deplorable a case; hoping that,
as you have had compassion on our overgrown coxcombs in concerns of less
consequence, you will exert your charity towards innocents, and vouchsafe to
be guardian to the children and youth of Great Britain in this important affair of

education, wherein mistakes and wrong measures have so often occasioned
their aversion to books, that had otherwise proved the chief ornament and
pleasure of their life. I am with sincerest respect,
"Sir,
"You
r, &c."

St. Cl[eme]nts, Oct. 5.
"Mr. Bickerstaff,
"I observe, as the season begins to grow cold, so does people's devotion;
insomuch that, instead of filling the churches, that united zeal might keep one
warm there, one is left to freeze in almost bare walls, by those who in hot
weather are troublesome the contrary way. This, sir, needs a regulation that
none but you can give to it, by causing those who absent themselves on account
of weather only this winter time, to pay the apothecary's bills occasioned by
coughs, catarrhs, and other distempers contracted by sitting in empty seats.
Therefore to you I apply myself for redress, having gotten such a cold on
Sunday was sevennight, that has brought me almost to your worship's age from
sixty within less than a fortnight. I am,
"Your Worship's in all obedience,
"
W. E."

FOOTNOTES:
[128] See Nos. 38 and 230.
[129] This letter refers to the one by Swift in No. 230, on the corruptions of the
English language in ordinary writings. The present letter, which is supposed to be by
James Greenwood, closes with the statement that an English grammar, with notes,
would be published next term. Soon afterwards there appeared, with the date 1711,
"A Grammar of the English Tongue, with Notes.... Printed for John Brightland," &c.
This book was noticed in the Works of the Learned for November 1710. Facing the
title is a page bearing the head of Cato the Censor, and the following lines: "The
Approbation of Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq.: 'The following treatise being submitted to
my censure, that I may pass it with integrity, I must declare, that as grammar in
general is on all hands allowed to be the foundation of all arts and sciences, so it
appears to me that this Grammar of the English Tongue has done that justice to our

language which, till now, it never obtained. The text will improve the most ignorant,
and the notes will employ the most learned. I therefore enjoin all my female
correspondents to buy, read, and study this grammar, that their letters may be
something less enigmatic; and on all my male correspondents likewise, who make no
conscience of false spelling and false English, I lay the same injunction, on pain of
having their epistles exposed in their own proper dress in my Lucubrations.—Isaac
Bickerstaff, Censor.'" There is a Dedication to the Queen, and a Preface in which
"the Authors" explain how they have come to undertake a much-needed work at the
request of Mr. Brightland.
This book was followed by a pamphlet of six pages, "Reasons for an English
Education, by teaching the Youth of both Sexes the Arts of Grammar, Rhetoric,
Poetry, and Logic, in their own Mother-Tongue, 1711." On p. 5 the writer asks, "Has
our Censor complained without cause, and given a false alarm of danger to the
language of our country? (Lucubrat., Sept. 28, 1710);" and on the next page we are
told that I. B., encouraged by the success of his book, was industriously correcting it
for a second edition. This appeared in 1712, with an increase in the number of pages
from 180 to 264. Other editions appeared in 1714 and 1720. The fifth is dated 1729,
and is advertised in the Craftsman for July 5, 1729, as "recommended by Sir Richard
Steele, for the use of the schools of Great Britain;" but according to the Monthly
Chronicle, it really appeared on August 8, 1728, being called in the Index,
"Bickerstaffe's Grammar." The seventh and eighth editions were published in 1746
and 1759.
In Nos. 254 and 255 of the Tatler there was advertised, as shortly to be published,
"An Essay towards a Practical English Grammar, by James Greenwood.... Particular
care has been taken to render this book useful and agreeable to the Fair Sex." This
book is dated 1711, and is noticed in the Works of the Learned for July. The Preface
gives "part of a letter which I wrote about a twelvemonth ago to the ingenious author
of the Tatler upon this head" (i.e. knowledge of grammar among the fair sex).
Greenwood's remarks on female education were not printed in the Tatler; but they
may have formed part of the letter in this number (234), if this letter is by
Greenwood. The third edition, enlarged, of Greenwood's "Essay" appeared on May
24, 1729. Greenwood was sub-master at St. Paul's School, and afterwards kept a
boarding-school at Woodford, in Essex. He published "The London Vocabulary,
English and Latin," of which there was a third edition in 1713, with curious
illustrations. By 1817 this book had passed through twenty six-editions in England,
besides several in America. Greenwood also published in 1713 "The Virgin Muse," a
collection of poetry for "young gentlemen and ladies at school." Second and third
editions appeared in 1722 and 1731.
Michael Maittaire also issued, in 1712, "An English Grammar; or, an Essay on the
Art of Grammar, applied to and exemplified in the English Tongue." In the same
year a pamphlet appeared with the title, "Bellum Grammatical, or the Grammatical
Battle-Royal. In Reflections on the three English Grammars published in about a
year last past." It consists chiefly of an attack on Greenwood's "Essay," and praise of
Brightland's "Grammar," which "merits what the Censor said of it." In a postscript
Maittaire's "Grammar" is described as the worst of all. Brightland and Greenwood
deserve to be remembered for their efforts to spread abroad a knowledge of "the
genius and nature of the English tongue." (The facts in this note are taken from a
paper by the present writer in Watford's Antiquarian for October 1885.)
[130] Horace, 3 Od. iv. 19.
[131] Virgil, "Eclog." i. 67.

[132]

"Bartolus (a covetous lawyer). Where shall I find these sums?
Diego (sexton to Lopez). Even where you please, sir."

—Beaumont and Fletcher's "Spanish Curate," Act. iv. sc. i.

No. 235. [Steele.[133]
From Saturday, Oct. 7, to Tuesday, Oct. 10, 1710.
Scit Genius, natale comes qui temperat astrum.
Hor., 2 Ep. ii. 187.

From my own Apartment, Oct. 9.

mong those inclinations which are common to all men, there is none
A more unaccountable than that unequal love by which parents
distinguish their children from each other. Sometimes vanity and self-
love appear to have a share towards this effect; and in other instances I have
been apt to attribute it to mere instinct: but however that is, we frequently
see the child that has been beholden to neither of these impulses in their
parents, in spite of being neglected, snubbed, and thwarted at home, acquire
a behaviour which makes it as agreeable to all the rest of the world, as that
of every one else of their family is to each other. I fell into this way of
thinking from an intimacy which I have with a very good house in our
neighbourhood, where there are three daughters of a very different character
and genius. The eldest has a great deal of wit and cunning; the second has
good sense, but no artifice; the third has much vivacity, but little
understanding. The first is a fine, but scornful woman; the second is not
charming, but very winning; the third no way commendable, but very
desirable. The father of these young creatures was ever a great pretender to
wit, the mother a woman of as much coquetry. This turn in the parents has
biassed their affections towards their children. The old man supposes the
eldest of his own genius, and the mother looks upon the youngest as herself
renewed. By this means, all the lovers that approach the house are discarded
by the father for not observing Mrs. Mary's wit and beauty, and by the
mother for being blind to the mien and air of Mrs. Biddy. Come never so
many pretenders, they are not suspected to have the least thoughts of Mrs.
Betty, the middle daughter. Betty therefore is mortified into a woman of a
great deal of merit, and knows she must depend on that only for her

advancement. The middlemost is thus the favourite of all her acquaintance
as well as mine, while the other two carry a certain insolence about them in
all conversations, and expect the partiality which they meet with at home to
attend them wherever they appear. So little do parents understand that they
are of all people the least judges of their children's merit, that what they
reckon such, is seldom anything else but a repetition of their own faults and
infirmities.
There is, methinks, some excuse for being particular when one of the
offspring has any defect in nature. In this case, the child, if we may so
speak, is so much the longer the child of its parents, and calls for the
continuance of their care and indulgence from the slowness of its capacity,
or the weakness of its body. But there is no enduring to see men enamoured
only at the sight of their own impertinences repeated, and to observe, as we
may sometimes, that they have a secret dislike of their children for a
degeneracy from their very crimes. Commend me to Lady Goodly; she is
equal to all her own children, but prefers them to those of all the world
beside. My lady is a perfect hen in the care of her brood; she fights and
squabbles with all that appear where they come, but is wholly unbiassed in
dispensing her favours among them. It is no small pains she is at to defame
all the young women in her neighbourhood by visits, whispers, intimations,
and hearsays; all which she ends with thanking Heaven, that no one living
is so blessed with such obedient and well-inclined children as herself.
Perhaps, says she, Betty cannot dance like Mrs. Frontinett, and it is no great
matter whether she does or not; but she comes into a room with a good
grace; though she says it that should not, she looks like a gentlewoman.
Then if Mrs. Rebecca is not so talkative as the mighty wit Mrs. Clapper, yet
she is discreet, she knows better what she says when she does speak. If her
wit be slow, her tongue never runs before it. This kind parent lifts up her
eyes and hands in congratulation of her own good fortune, and is
maliciously thankful that none of her girls are like any of her neighbours:
but this preference of her own to all others, is grounded upon an impulse of
nature; while those who like one before another of their own, are so
unpardonably unjust, that it could hardly be equalled in the children, though
they preferred all the rest of the world to such parents. It is no unpleasant
entertainment to see a ball at a dancing-school, and observe the joy of
relations when the young ones, for whom they are concerned, are in motion.
You need not be told whom the dancers belong to: at their first appearance

the passion of their parents are in their faces, and there is always a nod of
approbation stolen at a good step, or a graceful turn.
I remember among all my acquaintance but one man whom I have thought
to live with his children with equanimity and a good grace. He had three
sons and one daughter, whom he bred with all the care imaginable in a
liberal and ingenuous way.[134] I have often heard him say, he had the
weakness to love one much better than the other, but that he took as much
pains to correct that as any other criminal passion that could arise in his
mind. His method was, to make it the only pretension in his children to his
favour to be kind to each other; and he would tell them, that he who was the
best brother, he would reckon the best son. This turned their thoughts into
an emulation for the superiority in kind and tender affection towards each
other. The boys behaved themselves very early with a manly friendship; and
their sister, instead of the gross familiarities and impertinent freedoms in
behaviour, usual in other houses, was always treated by them with as much
complaisance as any other young lady of their acquaintance. It was an
unspeakable pleasure to visit or sit at meal in that family. I have often seen
the old man's heart flow at his eyes with joy upon occasions which would
appear indifferent to such as were strangers to the turn of his mind; but a
very slight accident, wherein he saw his children's good-will to one another,
created in him the God-like pleasure of loving them, because they loved
each other.[135] This great command of himself, in hiding his first impulse
to partiality, at last improved to a steady justice towards them; and that
which at first was but an expedient to correct his weakness, was afterwards
the measure of his virtue.
The truth of it is, those parents who are interested in the care of one child
more than that of another, no longer deserve the name of parents, but are in
effect as childish as their children, in having such unreasonable and
ungovernable inclinations. A father of this sort has degraded himself into
one of his own offspring; for none but a child would take part in the
passions of children.

FOOTNOTES:
[133] Nichols thinks that Addison was probably the author of this paper, because
of the allusion to Addison's family at the close. But Steele had visited Dr.

Lancelot Addison's home when he was a boy at the Charterhouse. The paper is
not printed in Addison's works.
[134] Addison's father, Dr. Lancelot Addison, Dean of Lichfield, had three sons:
(1) Joseph; (2) Gulston, who died Governor of Fort-George in the East Indies;
(3) Lancelot, who was entered in Queen's College, and afterwards became
Master of Arts, and Fellow of Magdalen College in Oxford; and a daughter,
Dorothy, first married to Dr. Sartre, formerly minister of Montpellier, and
afterwards Prebendary of Westminster; and, secondly, to Daniel Combes, Esq.
Swift wrote on October 25, 1710: "I dined to-day with Addison and Steele, and a
sister of Mr. Addison, who is married to one Mons. Sartre, a Frenchman,
prebendary of Westminster, who has a delicious house and garden; yet I thought
it was a sort of monastic life in those cloisters, and I liked Laracor better.
Addison's sister is a sort of a wit, very like him. I am not fond of her."
Addison had two other sisters, who died young. Of his brother Gulston we read
thus in the "Wentworth Papers" (pp. 75-76): "Since I wrote this, I am told a great
piece of news, that Mr. Addison is really a very great man with the juncto, and
that he has got his elder brother, who has been a factor abroad in those parts, to
be Governor of Fort St. George.... It seems Mr. Addison's friends can do what
they please with the chief of the East India Company, who, I think, have the
liberty of naming their Governor, and by management with them this place is
got, which they say some years is worth £20,000" (Peter Wentworth to Lord
Raby, January 28, 1709).
[135] In the Dedication to Congreve of Addison's "Drummer" (1722), Steele
said, "Mr. Dean Addison, father of this memorable man, left behind him four
children, each of whom, for excellent talents and singular perfections, was as
much above the ordinary world as their brother Joseph was above them. Were
things of this nature to be exposed to public view, I could show, under the Dean's
own hand, in the warmest terms, his blessing on the friendship between his son
and me; nor had he a child who did not prefer me in the first place of kindness
and esteem, as their father loved me like one of them."

No. 236. [Steele.[136]
From Tuesday, Oct. 10, to Thursday, Oct. 12, 1710.

Nescio qua natale solum dulcedine mentem
Tangit, et immemorem non sinit esse sui.

Ovid, Ep. ex Pont. 1. iii.

From my own Apartment, Oct. 11.

find in the registers of my family, that the branch of the Bickerstaffs from
I which I am descended, came originally out of Ireland.[137] This has given me
a kind of natural affection for that country. It is therefore with pleasure that I
see not only some of the greatest warriors, but also of the greatest wits, to be
natives of that kingdom. The gentleman who writes the following letter is one
of these last. The matter of fact contained in it is literally true, though the
diverting manner in which it is told may give it the colour of a fable.

To Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq., at his House in Great Britain.

Dublin.
"Sir,
inding by several passages of your Tatlers, that you are a person curious
"F in natural knowledge, I thought it would not be unacceptable to you to
give you the following history of the migration of frogs into this country.
There is an ancient tradition among the wild philosophers of the kingdom, that
this whole island was once as much infested by frogs, as that wherein
Whittington made his fortune was by mice; insomuch that it is said, Macdonald
the First could no more sleep by reason of these Dutch nightingales (as they are
called at Paris), than Pharaoh could when they croaked in his bed-chamber. It
was in the reign of this great monarch that St. Patrick arrived in Ireland, being
as famous for destroying vermin as any rat-catcher of our times. If we may
believe the tradition, he killed more in one day than a flock of storks could have

done in a twelvemonth. From that time for about five hundred years, there was
not a frog to be heard in Ireland, notwithstanding the bogs still remained, which
in former ages had been so plentifully stocked with those inhabitants.
"When the arts began to flourish in the reign of King Charles the Second, and
that great monarch had placed himself at the head of the Royal Society, to lead
them forward into the discoveries of nature, it is said, that several proposals
were laid before his Majesty for the importing of frogs into Ireland. In order to
it, a virtuoso of known abilities was unanimously elected by the Society, and
entrusted with the whole management of that affair. For this end he took along
with him a sound, able-bodied frog, of a strong, hale constitution, that had
given proof of his vigour by several leaps which he made before that learned
body. They took ship, and sailed together till they came within sight of the Hill
of Howth, before the frog discovered any symptoms of being indisposed by his
voyage: but as the wind chopped about, and began to blow from the Irish coast,
he grew sea-sick, or rather land-sick; for his learned companion ascribed it to
the particles of the soil with which the wind was impregnated. He was
confirmed in his conjecture, when, upon the wind's turning about, his fellow-
traveller sensibly recovered, and continued in good health till his arrival upon
the shore, where he suddenly relapsed, and expired upon a Ring's End car[138]
on his way to Dublin. The same experiment was repeated several times in that
reign, but to no purpose. A frog was never known to take three leaps upon Irish
turf, before he stretched himself out and died.
"Whether it were that the philosophers on this side the water despaired of
stocking the island with this useful animal, or whether in the following reign it
was not thought proper to undo the miracle of a Popish saint, I do not hear of
any further progress made in this affair till about two years after the battle of
the Boyne.
"It was then that an ingenious physician,[139] to the honour as well as
improvement of his native country, performed what the English had been so
long attempting in vain. This learned man, with the hazard of his life, made a
voyage to Liverpool, where he filled several barrels with the choicest spawn of
frogs that could be found in those parts. This cargo he brought over very
carefully, and afterwards disposed of it in several warm beds that he thought
most capable of bringing it to life. The doctor was a very ingenious physician,
and a very good Protestant; for which reason, to show his zeal against Popery,
he placed some of the most promising spawn in the very fountain that is
dedicated to the Saint, and known by the name of St. Patrick's Well, where

these animals had the impudence to make their first appearance. They have
since that time very much increased and multiplied in all the neighbourhood of
this city. We have here some curious inquirers into natural history who observe
their motions, with a design to compute in how many years they will be able to
hop from Dublin to Wexford; though, as I am informed, not one of them has yet
passed the mountains of Wicklow.
"I am further informed, that several graziers of the county of Cork have entered
into a project of planting a colony in those parts, at the instance of the French
Protestants: and I know not but the same design may be on foot in other parts of
the kingdom, if the wisdom of the British nation do not think fit to prohibit the
further importation of English frogs. I am,
"Sir,
"Your most humble Servant,
"
T. B."
There is no study more becoming a rational creature than that of natural
philosophy; but as several of our modern virtuosos manage it, their speculations
do not so much tend to open and enlarge the mind, as to contract and fix it upon
trifles.
This in England is in a great measure owing to the worthy elections that are so
frequently made in our Royal Society.[140] They seem to be in a confederacy
against men of polite genius, noble thought, and diffusive learning; and choose
into their assemblies such as have no pretence to wisdom, but want of wit; or to
natural knowledge, but ignorance of everything else. I have made observations
in this matter so long, that when I meet with a young fellow that is a humble
admirer of the sciences, but more dull than the rest of the company, I conclude
him to be a Fellow of the Royal Society.

FOOTNOTES:
[136] The authorship of the letter which forms the principal part of this number is
unknown. Goldsmith was told that a Dean of Killaloe was the author of a paper in
the Tatler or Spectator, but there is nothing to connect the Dean (Jerome Ryves) with
this particular number.
[137] This may apply either to Swift, from whom Steele borrowed the name of
Bickerstaff, or to Steele himself.
[138] "Our one horse vehicles have always been peculiar to ourselves, and were in
use long before anything of a similar kind was introduced into England. The earliest

and rudest of these were the Ring's End cars, so called from their plying principally
to that place and Irishtown, then the resort of the beau monde for the benefit of sea-
bathing. This car consisted of a seat suspended in a strap of leather between shafts,
and without springs. The noise made by the creaking of the strap, which supported
the whole weight of the company, particularly distinguished this mode of
conveyance" ("Sketches of Ireland Sixty Years Ago," p. 77, quoted in Notes and
Queries, 7th Series, iv. 178-179). Ring's End is a fishing village near Dublin.
[139] Sir Hans Sloane. The hazardous voyage to Liverpool is, perhaps, an allusion to
the doctor's voyage to Jamaica, ridiculed by Dr. William King, in "A Voyage to the
Island of Cajamai."
[140] For previous attacks on the Royal Society by Addison, see Nos. 119, 216, and
221.

No. 237. [? Steele.[141]
From Thursday, Oct. 12, to Saturday, Oct. 14, 1710.

In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas
Corpora.——

Ovid, Met. i. 1.

From my own Apartment, Oct. 13.

oming home last night before my usual hour, I took a book into my
C hand, in order to divert myself with it till bed-time. Milton chanced to
be my author, whose admirable poem of "Paradise Lost" serves, at
once, to fill the mind with pleasing ideas, and with good thoughts, and was
therefore the most proper book for my purpose. I was amusing myself with
that beautiful passage in which the poet represents Eve sleeping by Adam's
side, with the devil sitting at her ear, and inspiring evil thoughts under the
shape of a toad. Ithuriel, one of the guardian angels of the place, walking
his nightly rounds, saw the great enemy of mankind hid in this loathsome
animal, which he touched with his spear. This spear being of a celestial
temper, had such a secret virtue in it, that whatever it was applied to,
immediately flung off all disguise, and appeared in its natural figure. I am
afraid the reader will not pardon me if I content myself with explaining the
passage in prose, without giving it in the author's own inimitable words:

——On he led his radiant files,
Dazzling the morn: these to the bower direct,
In search of whom they sought. Him there they found,
Squat like a toad, close at the ear of Eve;
Essaying by his devilish art to reach
The organs of her fancy, and with them forge
Illusions as he list, phantasms and dreams;
Or if, inspiring venom, he might taint
The animal spirits (that from pure blood arise
Like gentle breaths from rivers pure), thence raise
At least distempered, discontented thoughts,
Vain hopes, vain aims, inordinate desires,
Blown up with high conceits, engendering pride.
Him thus intent, Ithuriel with his spear
Touched lightly; for no falsehood can endure
Touch of celestial temper, but returns
Of force to his own likeness. Up he starts,
Discovered and surprised. As when a spark
Lights on a heap of nitrous powder, laid
Fit for the tun, some magazine to store
Against a rumoured war, the smutty grain,
With sudden blaze diffused, inflames the air;
So started up in his own shape the fiend.[142]

I could not forbear thinking how happy a man would be in the possession of
this spear; or what an advantage it would be to a Minister of State, were he
master of such a white staff. It would let him discover his friends from his
enemies, men of abilities from pretenders: it would hinder him from being
imposed upon by appearances and professions, and might be made use of as
a kind of State test, which no artifice could elude.
These thoughts made very lively impressions on my imagination, which
were improved, instead of being defaced by sleep, and produced in me the
following dream: I was no sooner fallen asleep, but, methought, the angel
Ithuriel appeared to me, and with a smile that still added to his celestial

beauty, made me a present of the spear which he held in his hand, and
disappeared. To make trials of it, I went into a place of public resort.
The first person that passed by me, was a lady that had a particular shyness
in the cast of her eye, and a more than ordinary reservedness in all the parts
of her behaviour. She seemed to look upon man as an obscene creature,
with a certain scorn and fear of him. In the height of her airs I touched her
gently with my wand, when, to my unspeakable surprise, she fell upon her
back, and kicked up her heels in such a manner as made me blush in my
sleep. As I was hasting away from this undisguised prude, I saw a lady in
earnest discourse with another, and overheard her say with some
vehemence, "Never tell me of him, for I am resolved to die a virgin!" I had
a curiosity to try her; but as soon as I laid my wand upon her head, she
immediately fell in labour. My eyes were diverted from her by a man and
his wife, who walked near me hand-in-hand after a very loving manner. I
gave each of them a gentle tap, and the next instant saw the woman in
breeches, and the man with a fan in his hand. It would be tedious to
describe the long series of metamorphoses that I entertained myself with in
my night's adventure, of Whigs disguised in Tories, and Tories in Whigs;
men in red coats that denounced terror in their countenances, trembling at
the touch of my spear; others in black with peace in their mouths, but
swords in their hands. I could tell stories of noblemen changed into usurers,
and magistrates into beadles; of free-thinkers into penitents, and reformers
into whoremasters. I must not, however, omit the mention of a grave citizen
that passed by me with a huge clasped Bible under his arm, and a band of
most immoderate breadth; but upon a touch on the shoulder, he let drop his
book, and fell a-picking my pocket.
In the general I observed, that those who appeared good, often disappointed
my expectation; but that, on the contrary, those who appeared very bad, still
grew worse upon the experiment; as the toad in Milton, which one would
have thought the most deformed part of the creation, at Ithuriel's stroke,
became more deformed, and started up into a devil.
Among all the persons that I touched, there was but one who stood the test
of my wand; and after many repetitions of the stroke, stuck to his form, and
remained steady and fixed in his first appearance. This was a young man
who boasted of foul distempers, wild debauches, insults upon holy men,
and affronts to religion.

My heart was extremely troubled at this vision: the contemplation of the
whole species, so entirely sunk in corruption, filled my mind with a
melancholy that is inexpressible, and my discoveries still added to my
affliction.
In the midst of these sorrows which I had in my heart, methought there
passed by me a couple of coaches with purple liveries. There sat in each of
them a person with a very venerable aspect. At the appearance of them, the
people who were gathered round me in great multitudes divided into
parties, as they were disposed to favour either of those reverend persons.
The enemies of one of them begged me to touch him with my wand, and
assured me, I should see his lawn converted into a cloak. The opposite party
told me with as much assurance, that if I laid my wand upon the other, I
should see his garments embroidered with fleurs-de-lis, and his head
covered with a cardinal's cap. I made the experiment, and, to my great joy,
saw them both, without any change, distributing their blessings to the
people, and praying for those who had reviled them. Is it possible, thought
I, that good men, who are so few in number, should be divided among
themselves, and give better quarter to the vicious that are in their party, than
the most strictly virtuous who are out of it? Are the ties of faction above
those of religion?—I was going on in my soliloquies, but some sudden
accident awakened me, when I found my hand grasped, but my spear gone.
The reflection on so very odd a dream made me figure to myself, what a
strange face the world would bear, should all mankind appear in their
proper shapes and characters, without hypocrisy and disguise? I am afraid
the earth we live upon would appear to other intellectual beings no better
than a planet peopled with monsters. This should, methinks, inspire us with
an honest ambition of recommending ourselves to those invisible spies, and
of being what we would appear. There was one circumstance in my
foregoing dream which I at first intended to conceal; but upon second
thoughts, I cannot look upon myself as a candid and impartial historian, if I
do not acquaint my reader, that upon taking Ithuriel's spear into my hand,
though I was before an old decrepid fellow, I appeared a very handsome,
jolly, black man. But I know my enemies will say, this is praising my own
beauty, for which reason I will speak no more of it.

FOOTNOTES:

[141] Nichols thought this paper was written by Addison, or with his assistance.
"The Tatler upon Milton's 'spear' is not mine, madam. What a puzzle there was
between you and your judgment! In general you may sometimes be sure of
things, as that about Style [Tatler, No. 230], because it is what I have frequently
spoken of; but guessing is mine;—and I defy mankind if I please" (Swift's
"Journal to Stella," Nov. 8, 1710).
[142] "Paradise Lost," iv. 797-819.

No. 238. [Steele and Swift.[143]
From Saturday, Oct. 14, to Tuesday, Oct. 17, 1710.

——Poetica surgit
Tempestas——

Juv., Sat. xii. 23.

From my own Apartment, Oct. 16.

torms at sea are so frequently described by the ancient poets, and
S copied by the moderns, that whenever I find the winds begin to rise in a
new heroic poem, I generally skip a leaf or two till I come into fair
weather. Virgil's Tempest is a masterpiece in this kind, and is indeed so
naturally drawn, that one who has made a voyage can scarce read it without
being sea-sick.
Land showers are no less frequent among the poets than the former, but I
remember none of them which have not fallen in the country; for which
reason they are generally filled with the lowings of oxen and the bleatings
of sheep, and very often embellished with a rainbow.
Virgil's Land Shower is likewise the best in its kind: it is indeed a shower of
consequence, and contributes to the main design of the poem, by cutting off
a tedious ceremonial, and bringing matters to a speedy conclusion between
two potentates of different sexes. My ingenious kinsman, Mr. Humphrey
Wagstaff, who treats of every subject after a manner that no other author
has done, and better than any other can do, has sent me the description of a
City Shower. I do not question but the reader remembers my cousin's
description of the Morning as it breaks in town, which is printed in the ninth
Tatler, and is another exquisite piece of this local poetry:

Careful observers may foretell the hour
(By sure prognostics) when to dread a shower:
While rain depends, the pensive cat gives o'er
Her frolics, and pursues her tail no more.
Returning home at night, you'll find the sink
Strike your offended sense with double stink.
If you be wise, then go not far to dine,
You'll spend in coach-hire more than save in wine.
A coming shower your shooting corns presage,
Old aches throb,[144] your hollow tooth will rage.
Saunt'ring in coffee-house is Dulman seen;
He damns the climate, and complains of spleen.

Meanwhile the south rising with dabbled wings,
A sable cloud athwart the welkin flings,
That swilled more liquor than it could contain,
And like a drunkard gives it up again.
Brisk Susan whips her linen from the rope,
While the first drizzling shower is borne aslope.
Such is that sprinkling which some careless quean
Flirts on you from her mop, but not so clean.
You fly, invoke the gods; then turning, stop
To rail; she singing, still whirls on her mop.
Not yet the dust had shunned th'unequal strife,
But aided by the wind, fought still for life;
And wafted with its foe by violent gust,
'Twas doubtful which was rain and which was dust.
Ah! where must needy poet seek for aid,
When dust and rain at once his coat invade;
His only coat, where dust confused with rain
Roughen the nap, and leave a mingled stain.

Now in contiguous drops the flood comes down,
Threatening with deluge this devoted town.
To shops in crowds the daggled females fly,
Pretend to cheapen goods, but nothing buy.
The Templar spruce, while every spout's abroach,

p p , y p ,
Stays till 'tis fair, yet seems to call a coach.
The tucked-up sempstress walks with hasty strides,
While streams run down her oiled umbrella's sides.
Here various kinds by various fortunes led,
Commence acquaintance underneath a shed.
Triumphant Tories and desponding Whigs
Forget their feuds, and join to save their wigs.
Boxed in a chair the beau impatient sits,
While spouts run clattering o'er the roof by fits;
And ever and anon with frightful din
The leather sounds, he trembles from within.
So when Troy chairmen bore the wooden steed,
Pregnant with Greeks, impatient to be freed.
(Those bully Greeks, who, as the moderns do,
Instead of paying chairmen, run them through.)
Laocoon struck the outside with his spear,
And each imprisoned hero quaked for fear.

Now from all parts the swelling kennels flow,
And bear their trophies with them as they go:
Filth of all hues and odours seem to tell
What street they sailed from, by their sight and smell.
They, as each torrent drives, with rapid force,
From Smithfield or St. Pulchre's shape their course,
And in huge confluent joined at Snow Hill ridge,
Fall from the Conduit, prone to Holborn Bridge.
Sweepings from butchers' stalls, dung, guts, and blood,
Drowned puppies, stinking sprats, all drenched in mud,
Dead cats and turnip-tops come tumbling down the flood.

FOOTNOTES:
[143] "I am going to work at another Tatler" (Swift's "Journal," Oct. 4, 1710).
"And now I am going in charity to send Steele another Tatler, who is very low of
late" (Ib., Oct. 7, 1710). "I am now writing my poetical description of a 'Shower
in London,' and will send it to the Tatler" (Ib., Oct. 10, 1710). "I have finished
my poem on the 'Shower,' all but the beginning; and am going on with my
Tatler" (Ib., Oct. 12, 1710). "This day came out the Tatler, made up wholly of

No. 239. [Addison.
From Tuesday, Oct. 17, to Thursday, Oct. 19, 1710.
----Mecum certasse feretur.—Ovid, Met. xiii. 20.

From my own Apartment, Oct. 18.

t is ridiculous for any man to criticise on the works of another, who has
I not distinguished himself by his own performances. A judge would make
but an indifferent figure who had never been known at the bar. Cicero
was reputed the greatest orator of his age and country before he wrote a
book "De Oratore"; and Horace the greatest poet before he published his
"Art of Poetry." This observation arises naturally in any one who casts his
eye upon this last-mentioned author, where he will find the criticisms
placed in the latter end of his book, that is, after the finest odes and satires
in the Latin tongue.
A modern, whose name I shall not mention,[145] because I would not make a
silly paper sell, was born a critic and an Examiner, and, like one of the race
of the serpent's teeth, came into the world with a sword in his hand. His
works put me in mind of the story that is told of a German monk, who was
taking a catalogue of a friend's library, and meeting with a Hebrew book in
it, entered it under the title of "A book that has the beginning where the end
should be." This author, in the last of his crudities, has amassed together a
heap of quotations, to prove that Horace and Virgil were both of them
modester men than myself, and if his works were to live as long as mine,
they might possibly give posterity a notion, that Isaac Bickerstaff was a
very conceited old fellow, and as vain a man as either Tully or Sir Francis
Bacon. Had this serious writer fallen upon me only, I could have
overlooked it; but to see Cicero abused, is, I must confess, what I cannot
bear. The censure he passes upon this great man runs thus: "The itch of
being very abusive, is almost inseparable from vainglory. Tully has these
two faults in so high a degree, that nothing but his being the best writer in
the world can make amends for them." The scurrilous wretch goes on to say

I am as bad as Tully. His words are these: "And yet the Tatler, in his paper
of September 26, has outdone him in both. He speaks of himself with more
arrogance, and with more insolence of others." I am afraid by his discourse,
this gentleman has no more read Plutarch than he has Tully. If he had, he
would have observed a passage in that historian, wherein he has with great
delicacy distinguished between two passions which are usually complicated
in human nature, and which an ordinary writer would not have thought of
separating. Not having my Greek spectacles by me, I shall quote the
passage word for word as I find it translated to my hand. "Nevertheless,
though he was intemperately fond of his own praise, yet he was very free
from envying others, and most liberally profuse in commending both the
ancients and his contemporaries, as is to be understood by his writings; and
many of those sayings are still recorded, as that concerning Aristotle, that
he was a river of flowing gold: of Plato's 'Dialogue,' that if Jupiter were to
speak, he would discourse as he did. Theophrastus he was wont to call his
peculiar delight; and being asked, which of Demosthenes his orations he
liked best? he answered, the longest.
"And as for the eminent men of his own time, either for eloquence or
philosophy, there was not one of them which he did not, by writing or
speaking favourably of, render more illustrious."
Thus the critic tells us, that Cicero was excessively vainglorious and
abusive; Plutarch, that he was vain, but not abusive. Let the reader believe
which of them he pleases.
After this he complains to the world, that I call him names; and that in my
passion I said, he was "a flea, a louse, an owl, a bat, a small wit, a scribbler,
and a nibbler." When he has thus bespoken his reader's pity, he falls into
that admirable vein of mirth, which I shall set down at length, it being an
exquisite piece of raillery, and written in great gaiety of heart. "After this
list of names (viz., flea, louse, owl, bat, &c.), I was surprised to hear him
say, that he has hitherto kept his temper pretty well; I wonder how he will
write when he has lost his temper? I suppose, as he now is very angry and
unmannerly, he will then be exceeding courteous and good-humoured." If I
can outlive this raillery, I shall be able to bear anything.
There is a method of criticism made use of by this author (for I shall take
care how I call him a scribbler again), which may turn into ridicule any

work that was ever written, wherein there is a variety of thoughts: this the
reader will observe in the following words: "He (meaning me) is so intent
upon being something extraordinary, that he scarce knows what he would
be; and is as fruitful in his similes, as a brother of his[146] whom I lately
took notice of. In the compass of a few lines he compares himself to a fox,
to Daniel Burgess, to the Knight of the Red Cross, to an oak with ivy about
it, and to a great man with an equipage." I think myself as much honoured
by being joined in this part of his paper with the gentleman whom he here
calls my brother, as I am in the beginning of it, by being mentioned with
Horace and Virgil.
It is very hard that a man cannot publish ten papers without stealing from
himself; but to show you that this is only a knack of writing, and that the
author is got into a certain road of criticism, I shall set down his remarks on
the works of the gentleman whom he here glances upon, as they stand in his
sixth paper, and desire the reader to compare them with the foregoing
passage upon mine:
"In thirty lines his patron is a river, the primum mobile, a pilot, a victim, the
sun, anything, and nothing. He bestows increase, conceals his source,
makes the machine move, teaches to steer, expiates our offences, raises
vapours, and looks larger as he sets."
What poem can be safe from this sort of criticism? I think I was never in
my life so much offended as at a wag whom I once met with in a coffee-
house: he had in his hand one of the Miscellanies, and was reading the
following short copy of verses, which, without flattery to the author,[147] is,
I think, as beautiful in its kind as any one in the English tongue:

Flavia the least and slightest toy
Can with resistless art employ.
This fan in meaner hands would prove
An engine of small force in love;
But she with such an air and mien,
Not to be told, or safely seen,
Directs its wanton motions so,
That it wounds more than Cupid's bow;
Gives coolness to the matchless dame,
To every other breast a flame.

When this coxcomb had done reading them, "Heyday!" says he, "what
instrument is this that Flavia employs in such a manner as is not to be told,
nor safely seen? In ten lines it is a toy, a Cupid's bow, a fan, and an engine
in love. It has wanton motions, it wounds, it cools, and inflames."
Such criticisms make a man of sense sick, and a fool merry.
The next paragraph of the paper we are talking of falls upon somebody
whom I am at a loss to guess at:[148] but I find the whole invective turns
upon a man who (it seems) has been imprisoned for debt. Whoever he was,
I most heartily pity him; but at the same time must put the Examiner in
mind, that notwithstanding he is a critic, he still ought to remember he is a
Christian. Poverty was never thought a proper subject for ridicule; and I do
not remember that I ever met with a satire upon a beggar.
As for those little retortings of my own expressions, of being dull by design,
witty in October, shining, excelling, and so forth; they are the common
cavils of every witling, who has no other method of showing his parts, but
by little variations and repetitions of the man's words whom he attacks.
But the truth of it is, the paper before me, not only in this particular, but in
its very essence, is like Ovid's echo:

----Quæ nec reticere loquenti,
Nec prior ipsa loqui didicit.[149]

I should not have deserved the character of a censor, had I not animadverted
upon the above-mentioned author by a gentle chastisement: but I know my
reader will not pardon me, unless I declare, that nothing of this nature for
the future (unless it be written with some wit) shall divert me from my care
of the public.

FOOTNOTES:
[145] The Examiner, the eleventh number of which consisted of jibes against
No. 229 of the Tatler, by Addison.
[146] Sir Samuel Garth, who has attacked in the sixth number of the Examiner.
[147] Bishop Atterbury. The verses were written "on a white fan borrowed from
Miss Osborne, afterwards his wife."
[148] The attack was, of course, on Steele, and consisted of allusions to
sponging-houses and fears of arrest for debt. It will be remarked that No. 229
was really by Addison, who here nobly defends his friend.
[149] Ovid, "Met." iii, 357.

No. 240. [Addison.
From Thursday, Oct. 19, to Saturday, Oct. 21, 1710.
Ad populum phaleras.—Pers., Sat. iii. 30.

From my own Apartment, Oct. 20.

do not remember that in any of my Lucubrations I have touched upon
I that useful science of physic, notwithstanding I have declared myself
more than once a professor of it. I have indeed joined the study of
astrology with it, because I never knew a physician recommend himself to
the public who had not a sister art to embellish his knowledge in medicine.
It has been commonly observed in compliment to the ingenious of our
profession, that Apollo was god of verse as well as physic; and in all ages
the most celebrated practitioners of our country were the particular
favourites of the Muses. Poetry to physic is indeed like the gilding to a pill;
it makes the art shine, and covers the severity of the doctor with the
agreeableness of the companion.
The very foundation of poetry is good sense, if we may allow Horace to be
a judge of the art:
Scribendi recte sapere est et principium et fons.[150]
And if so, we have reason to believe that the same man who writes well can
prescribe well, if he has applied himself to the study of both. Besides, when
we see a man making profession of two different sciences, it is natural for
us to believe he is no pretender in that which we are not judges of when we
find him skilful in that which we understand.
Ordinary quacks and charlatans are thoroughly sensible how necessary it is
to support themselves by these collateral assistances, and therefore always
lay their claim to some supernumerary accomplishments which are wholly
foreign to their profession.

About twenty years ago it was impossible to walk the streets without having
an advertisement thrust into your hand of a doctor who was arrived at the
knowledge of the green and red dragon, and had discovered the female fern
seed. Nobody ever knew what this meant; but the green and red dragon so
amused the people, that the doctor lived very comfortably upon them.
About the same time there was pasted a very hard word upon every corner
of the streets. This, to the best of my remembrance, was
TETRACHYMAGOGON,
which drew great shoals of spectators about it, who read the bill that it
introduced with unspeakable curiosity; and when they were sick, would
have nobody but this learned man for their physician.
I once received an advertisement of one who had studied thirty years by
candle-light for the good of his countrymen. He might have studied twice as
long by daylight, and never have been taken notice of: but lucubrations
cannot be overvalued. There are some who have gained themselves great
reputation for physic by their birth, as the seventh son of a seventh son; and
others by not being born at all, as the Unborn Doctor,[151] who, I hear, is
lately gone the way of his patients, having died worth five hundred pounds
per annum, though he was not born to a halfpenny.
My ingenious friend Dr. Saffold[152] succeeded my old contemporary Dr.
Lilly[153] in the studies both of physic and astrology, to which he added that
of poetry, as was to be seen both upon the sign where he lived, and in the
bills which he distributed. He was succeeded by Dr. Case,[154] who erased
the verses of his predecessor out of the sign-post, and substituted in their
stead two of his own, which were as follows:

Within this place
Lives Doctor Case.

He is said to have got more by this distich than Mr. Dryden did by all his
works. There would be no end of enumerating the several imaginary
perfections and unaccountable artifices by which this tribe of men ensnare
the minds of the vulgar, and gain crowds of admirers. I have seen the whole
front of a mountebank's stage from one end to the other faced with patents,

certificates, medals, and great seals, by which the several princes of Europe
have testified their particular respect and esteem for the doctor. Every great
man with a sounding title has been his patient. I believe I have seen twenty
mountebanks that have given physic to the Czar of Muscovy. The great
Duke of Tuscany escapes no better. The Elector of Brandenburg was
likewise a very good patient.
This great condescension of the doctor draws upon him much good-will
from his audience; and it is ten to one, but if any of them be troubled with
an aching tooth, his ambition will prompt him to get it drawn by a person
who has had so many princes, kings, and emperors under his hands.
I must not leave this subject without observing, that as physicians are apt to
deal in poetry, apothecaries endeavour to recommend themselves by
oratory, and are therefore without controversy the most eloquent persons in
the whole British nation. I would not willingly discourage any of the arts,
especially that of which I am a humble professor; but I must confess, for the
good of my native country, I could wish there might be a suspension of
physic for some years, that our kingdom, which has been so much
exhausted by the wars, might have leave to recruit itself.
As for myself, the only physic which has brought me safe to almost the age
of man, and which I prescribe to all my friends, is abstinence. This is
certainly the best physic for prevention, and very often the most effectual
against a present distemper. In short, my recipe is, Take nothing.
Were the body politic to be physicked like particular persons, I should
venture to prescribe to it after the same manner. I remember when our
whole island was shaken with an earthquake some years ago, there was an
impudent mountebank who sold pills which (as he told the country people)
were very good against an earthquake. It may perhaps be thought as absurd
to prescribe a diet for the allaying popular commotions, and national
ferments. But I am verily persuaded, that if in such a case a whole people
were to enter into a course of abstinence, and eat nothing but water-gruel
for a fortnight, it would abate the rage and animosity of parties, and not a
little contribute to the cure of a distracted nation. Such a fast would have a
natural tendency to the procuring of those ends for which a fast is usually
proclaimed. If any man has a mind to enter on such a voluntary abstinence,

it might not be improper to give him the caution of Pythagoras in particular:
[155]

Abstine a fabis.
"Abstain from beans."
That is, say the interpreters, meddle not with elections, beans having been
made use of by the voters among the Athenians in the choice of magistrates.

FOOTNOTES:
[150] Ars Poet. 309
[151] Kirleus (see No. 14).
[152] Saffold (see No. 20, note) is said to have been originally a weaver.
Afterwards he told fortunes, and practised as a quack doctor. A satirical "Elegy
on the Death of Thomas Saffold, who departed this life, May 12, 1691," was
published after his death.
[153] William Lilly, astrologer, died in 1681, aged seventy-nine. He published
thirty-six almanacs, and a large number of pamphlets about his predictions. In
1715 appeared the "History of Lilly's Life and Times," written by himself.
[154] See No. 20.
[155] See Cicero, Div. i. 30, 62; ii. 58, 119; and Horace, 2 Sat. vi. 63.

No. 241. [Steele.
From Saturday, Oct. 21, to Tuesday, Oct. 24, 1710.
From my own Apartment, Oct. 23.

method of spending one's time agreeably is a thing so little studied, that
A the common amusement of our young gentlemen (especially of such as are
at a distance from those of the first breeding) is drinking. This way of
entertainment has custom of its side; but as much as it has prevailed, I believe
there have been very few companies that have been guilty of excess this way,
where there have not happened more accidents which make against than for the
continuance of it. It is very common that events arise from a debauch which are
fatal, and always such as are disagreeable. With all a man's reason and good
sense about him, his tongue is apt to utter things out of mere gaiety of heart
which may displease his best friends. Who then would trust himself to the
power of wine, without saying more against it, than that it raises the
imagination, and depresses the judgment. Were there only this single
consideration, that we are less masters of ourselves when we drink in the least
proportion above the exigencies of thirst; I say, were this all that could be
objected, it were sufficient to make us abhor this vice. But we may go on to say,
that as he who drinks but a little is not master of himself, so he who drinks
much is a slave to himself. As for my part, I ever esteemed a drunkard of all
vicious persons the most vicious: for if our actions are to be weighed and
considered according to the intention of them, what can we think of him who
puts himself into a circumstance wherein he can have no intention at all, but
incapacitates himself for the duties and offices of life, by a suspension of all his
faculties. If a man considered, that he cannot under the oppression of drink be a
friend, a gentleman, a master, or a subject; that he has so long banished himself
from all that is dear, and given up all that is sacred to him, he would even then
think of a debauch with horror: but when he looks still further, and
acknowledges, that he is not only expelled out of all the relations of life, but
also liable to offend against them all, what words can express the terror and
detestation he would have of such a condition? And yet he owns all this of
himself who says he was drunk last night.

As I have all along persisted in it, that all the vicious in general are in a state of
death, so I think I may add to the non-existence of drunkards, that they died by
their own hands. He is certainly as guilty of suicide who perishes by a slow, as
he that is despatched by an immediate poison. In my last Lucubration I
proposed the general use of water-gruel, and hinted that it might not be amiss at
this very season: but as there are some whose cases, in regard to their families,
will not admit of delay, I have used my interest in several wards of the city, that
the wholesome restorative above mentioned may be given in tavern kitchens to
all the morning's draught-men within the walls when they call for wine before
noon. For a further restraint and mark upon such persons, I have given orders,
that in all the offices where policies are drawn upon lives, it shall be added to
the article which prohibits that the nominee should cross the sea, the words,
"Provided also, that the above-mentioned A. B. shall not drink before dinner
during the term mentioned in this indenture."
I am not without hopes but by this method I shall bring some unsizable friends
of mine into shape and breath, as well as others who are languid and
consumptive into health and vigour. Most of the self-murderers whom I yet
hinted at, are such as preserve a certain regularity in taking their poison, and
make it mix pretty well with their food: but the most conspicuous of those who
destroy themselves, are such as in their youth fall into this sort of debauchery,
and contract a certain uneasiness of spirit, which is not to be diverted but by
tippling as often as they can fall into company in the day, and conclude with
downright drunkenness at night. These gentlemen never know the satisfaction
of youth, but skip the years of manhood, and are decrepid soon after they are of
age. I was god-father to one of these old fellows. He is now three-and-thirty,
which is the grand climacteric of a young drunkard. I went to visit the crazy
wretch this morning, with no other purpose but to rally him under the pain and
uneasiness of being sober.
But as our faults are double when they affect others besides ourselves, so this
vice is still more odious in a married than a single man. He that is the husband
of a woman of honour, and comes home overloaded with wine, is still more
contemptible in proportion to the regard we have to the unhappy consort of his
bestiality. The imagination cannot shape to itself anything more monstrous and
unnatural than the familiarities between drunkenness and chastity. The wretched
Astrea, who is the perfection of beauty and innocence, has long been thus
condemned for life. The romantic tales of virgins devoted to the jaws of
monsters, have nothing in them so terrible as the gift of Astrea to that
bacchanal.

The reflection of such a match as spotless innocence with abandoned lewdness,
is what puts this vice in the worst figure it can bear with regard to others; but
when it is looked upon with respect only to the drunkard himself, it has
deformities enough to make it disagreeable, which may be summed up in a
word, by allowing, that he who resigns his reason, is actually guilty of all that
he is liable to from the want of reason.
P.S.—Among many other enormities, there are two in the following letters
which I think should be suddenly amended; but since they are sins of omission
only, I shall not make remarks upon them till I find the delinquents persist in
their errors; and the inserting the letters themselves shall be all their present
admonition.

October 16.
"Mr. Bickerstaff,
everal that frequent divine service at St. Paul's, as well as myself, having
"S with great satisfaction observed the good effect which your
animadversion had on an excess in performance there;[156] it is requested,
that you will take notice of a contrary fault, which is the unconcerned silence
and the motionless postures of others who come thither. If this custom prevails,
the congregation will resemble an audience at a play-house, or rather a dumb
meeting of Quakers. Your censuring such church-mutes in the manner you think
fit, may make these dissenters join with us, out of fear lest you should further
animadvert upon their non-conformity. According as this succeeds, you shall
hear from,
"Sir,
"Your most humble Servant,
"
B. B."

"Mr. Bickerstaff,

was the other day in company with a gentleman, who, in reciting his own
"I qualifications, concluded every period with these words, 'the best of any
man in England.' Thus for example: he kept the best house of any man in
England; he understood this, and that, and the other, the best of any man in
England. How harsh and ungrateful soever this expression might sound to one
of my nation, yet the gentleman was one whom it no ways became me to
interrupt; but perhaps a new term put into his by-words (as they call a sentence
a man particularly affects) may cure him. I therefore took a resolution to apply
to you, who, I dare say, can easily persuade this gentleman (whom I cannot
believe an enemy to the Union) to mend his phrase, and be hereafter the wisest
of any man in Great Britain. I am,
"Sir,
"Your most humble Servant,
"Scoto-Britannus."

Advertisement.

hereas Mr. Humphrey Trelooby, wearing his own hair, a pair of buck-skin
W breeches, a hunting-whip, with a new pair of spurs, has complained to the
Censor, that on Thursday last he was defrauded of half-a-crown, under
pretence of a duty to the sexton for seeing the Cathedral of St. Paul, London: it
is hereby ordered, that none hereafter require above sixpence of any country
gentleman under the age of twenty-five for that liberty; and that all which shall
be received above the said sum of any person for beholding the inside of that
sacred edifice, be forthwith paid to Mr. John Morphew for the use of Mr.
Bickerstaff, under pain of further censure on the above-mentioned extortion.

FOOTNOTES:
[156] See Nos. 56, 61, 67, and 70.

No. 242. [Steele.
From Tuesday, Oct. 24, to Thursday, Oct. 26, 1710.

——Quis iniquæ
Tam patiens urbis, tam ferreus, ut teneat se?

Juv., Sat. i. 30.

From my own Apartment, Oct. 25.

t was with very great displeasure I heard this day a man say of a
I companion of his with an air of approbation, "You know Tom never fails
of saying a spiteful thing. He has a great deal of wit, but satire is his
particular talent. Did you mind how he put the young fellow out of
countenance that pretended to talk to him?" Such impertinent applauses,
which one meets with every day, put me upon considering what true raillery
and satire were in themselves; and this, methought, occurred to me from
reflection upon the great and excellent persons that were admired for talents
this way. When I had run over several such in my thoughts, I concluded
(however unaccountable the assertion might appear at first sight) that good-
nature was an essential quality in a satirist, and that all the sentiments which
are beautiful in this way of writing must proceed from that quality in the
author. Good-nature produces a disdain of all baseness, vice, and folly,
which prompts them to express themselves with smartness against the
errors of men, without bitterness towards their persons. This quality keeps
the mind in equanimity, and never lets an offence unseasonably throw a
man out of his character. When Virgil said, he that did not hate Bavius
might love Mævius,[157] he was in perfect good-humour, and was not so
much moved at their absurdities as passionately to call them sots or
blockheads in a direct invective, but laughed at them with a delicacy of
scorn, without any mixture of anger.

The best good man, with the worst-natured muse, was the character among
us of a gentleman as famous for his humanity as his wit.[158]
The ordinary subjects for satire are such as incite the greatest indignation in
the best tempers, and consequently men of such a make are the best
qualified for speaking of the offences in human life. These men can behold
vice and folly when they injure persons to whom they are wholly
unacquainted, with the same severity as others resent the ills they do
themselves. A good-natured man cannot see an overbearing fellow put a
bashful man of merit out of countenance, or outstrip him in the pursuit of
any advantage; but he is on fire to succour the oppressed, to produce the
merit of the one, and confront the impudence of the other.
The men of the greatest character in this kind were Horace and Juvenal.
There is not, that I remember, one ill-natured expression in all their
writings, not one sentence of severity which does not apparently proceed
from the contrary disposition. Whoever reads them, will, I believe, be of
this mind; and if they were read with this view, it may possibly persuade
our young fellows, that they may be very witty men without speaking ill of
any but those who deserve it: but in the perusal of these writers it may not
be unnecessary to consider, that they lived in very different times. Horace
was intimate with a prince of the greatest goodness and humanity
imaginable, and his court was formed after his example; therefore the faults
that poet falls upon were little inconsistencies in behaviour, false pretences
to politeness, or impertinent affectations of what men were not fit for. Vices
of a coarser sort could not come under his consideration, or enter the palace
of Augustus. Juvenal, on the other hand, lived under Domitian, in whose
reign everything that was great and noble was banished the habitations of
the men in power. Therefore he attacks vice as it passes by in triumph, not
as it breaks into conversation. The fall of empire, contempt of glory, and a
general degeneracy of manners, are before his eyes in all his writings. In the
days of Augustus, to have talked like Juvenal had been madness, or in those
of Domitian like Horace. Morality and virtue are everywhere recommended
in Horace, as became a man in a polite court, from the beauty, the propriety,
the convenience, of pursuing them. Vice and corruption are attacked by
Juvenal in a style which denotes, he fears he shall not be heard without he
calls to them in their own language, with a bare-faced mention of the
villanies and obscenities of his contemporaries.

This accidental talk of these two great men runs me from my design, which
was to tell some coxcombs that run about this town with the name of smart
satirical fellows, that they are by no means qualified for the characters they
pretend to, of being severe upon other men, for they want good-nature.
There is no foundation in them for arriving at what they aim at; and they
may as well pretend to flatter, as rail agreeably without being good-natured.
There is a certain impartiality necessary to make what a man says bear any
weight with those he speaks to. This quality, with respect to men's errors
and vices, is never seen but in good-natured men. They have ever such a
frankness of mind, and benevolence to all men, that they cannot receive
impressions of unkindness without mature deliberation; and writing or
speaking ill of a man upon personal considerations, is so irreparable and
mean an injury, that no one possessed of this quality is capable of doing it:
but in all ages there have been interpreters to authors when living, of the
same genius with the commentators, into whose hands they fall when dead.
I dare say, it is impossible for any man of more wit than one of these to take
any of the four-and-twenty letters, and form out of them a name to describe
the character of a vicious man with greater life, but one of these would
immediately cry, Mr. Such-a-one is meant in that place. But the truth of it
is, satirists describe the age, and backbiters assign their descriptions to
private men.
In all terms of reproof, when the sentence appears to arise from personal
hatred or passion, it is not then made the cause of mankind, but a
misunderstanding between two persons. For this reason, the representations
of a good-natured man bear a pleasantry in them, which shows there is no
malignity at heart, and by consequence are attended to by his hearers or
readers because they are unprejudiced. This deference is only what is due to
him; for no man thoroughly nettled can say a thing general enough to pass
off with the air of an opinion declared, and not a passion gratified. I
remember a humorous fellow at Oxford, when he heard any one had spoken
ill of him, used to say, "I won't take my revenge of him till I have forgiven
him." What he meant by this, was, that he would not enter upon this subject
till it was grown as indifferent to him as any other; and I have, by this rule,
seen him more than once triumph over his adversary with an inimitable
spirit and humour; for he came to the assault against a man full of sore
places, and he himself invulnerable.

There is no possibility of succeeding in a satirical way of writing or
speaking, except a man throws himself quite out of the question. It is great
vanity to think any one will attend a thing because it is your quarrel. You
must make your satire the concern of society in general, if you would have
it regarded. When it is so, the good-nature of a man of wit will prompt him
to many brisk and disdainful sentiments and replies, to which all the malice
in the world will not be able to repartee.

FOOTNOTES:
[157] Virgil, "Eclog." iii. 90.
[158] This was said of Lord Buckhurst, afterwards Earl of Dorset, by the Earl of
Rochester.

No. 243. [Addison.
From Thursday, Oct. 26, to Saturday, Oct. 28, 1710.

Infert se septus nebula, mirabile dictu,
Per medios, miscetque viris; neque cernitur ulli.

Virg., Æn. i. 439.

From my own Apartment, Oct. 27.

have somewhere made mention of Gyges's ring,[159] and intimated to my
I reader, that it was at present in my possession, though I have not since
made any use of it. The tradition concerning this ring is very romantic,
and taken notice of both by Plato and Tully, who each of them make an
admirable use of it for the advancement of morality. This Gyges was the
master shepherd to King Candaules. As he was wandering over the plains of
Lydia, he saw a great chasm in the earth, and had the curiosity to enter it.
After having descended pretty far into it, he found the statue of a horse in
brass, with doors in the sides of it. Upon opening of them, he found the
body of a dead man bigger than ordinary, with a ring upon his finger, which
he took off, and put it upon his own. The virtues of it were much greater
than he at first imagined; for upon his going into the assembly of shepherds,
he observed, that he was invisible when he turned the stone of the ring
within the palm of his hand, and visible when he turned it towards his
company. Had Plato and Cicero been as well versed in the occult sciences
as I am, they would have found a great deal of mystic learning in this
tradition; but it is impossible for an adept to be understood by one who is
not an adept.
As for myself, I have with much study and application arrived at this great
secret of making myself invisible, and by that means conveying myself
where I pleased; or to speak in Rosicrucian lore, I have entered into the
clefts of the earth, discovered the brazen horse, and robbed the dead giant of

his ring. The tradition says further of Gyges, that by the means of this ring
he gained admission into the most retired parts of the court, and made such
use of those opportunities, that he at length became King of Lydia. For my
own part, I, who have always rather endeavoured to improve my mind than
my fortune, have turned this ring to no other advantage than to get a
thorough insight into the ways of men, and to make such observations upon
the errors of others as may be useful to the public, whatever effect they may
have upon myself.
About a week ago, not being able to sleep, I got up and put on my magical
ring, and with a thought transported myself into a chamber where I saw a
light. I found it inhabited by a celebrated beauty, though she is of that
species of women which we call a slattern. Her head-dress and one of her
shoes lay upon a chair, her petticoat in one corner of the room, and her
girdle, that had a copy of verses made upon it but the day before, with her
thread stockings, in the middle of the floor. I was so foolishly officious, that
I could not forbear gathering up her clothes together to lay them upon the
chair that stood by her bedside, when, to my great surprise, after a little
muttering, she cried out, "What do you do? Let my petticoat alone." I was
startled at first, but soon found that she was in a dream; being one of those
who, to use Shakespeare's expression, are "so loose of thought,"[160] that
they utter in their sleep everything that passes in their imagination. I left the
apartment of this female rake, and went into her neighbour's, where there
lay a male coquet. He had a bottle of salts hanging over his head, and upon
the table, by his bedside, Suckling's Poems, with a little heap of black
patches on it. His snuff-box was within reach on a chair: but while I was
admiring the disposition which he made of the several parts of his dress, his
slumber seemed interrupted by a pang, that was accompanied by a sudden
oath, as he turned himself over hastily in his bed. I did not care for seeing
him in his nocturnal pains, and left the room.
I was no sooner got into another bed-chamber, but I heard very harsh words
uttered in a smooth uniform tone. I was amazed to hear so great a volubility
in reproach, and thought it too coherent to be spoken by one asleep; but
upon looking nearer, I saw the headdress of the person who spoke, which
showed her to be a female with a man lying by her side broad awake, and as
quiet as a lamb. I could not but admire his exemplary patience, and

discovered by his whole behaviour, that he was then lying under the
discipline of a curtain lecture.
I was entertained in many other places with this kind of nocturnal
eloquence, but observed, that most of those whom I found awake, were kept
so either by envy or by love. Some of these were fighting, and others
cursing, in soliloquy; some hugged their pillows, and others gnashed their
teeth.
The covetous I likewise found to be a very wakeful people. I happened to
come into a room where one of them lay sick. His physician and his wife
were in close whisper near his bedside. I overheard the doctor say to the
poor gentlewoman, "He cannot possibly live till five in the morning." She
received it like the mistress of a family prepared for all events. At the same
instant came in a servant-maid, who said, "Madam, the undertaker is below
according to your order." The words were scarce out of her mouth, when the
sick man cried out with a feeble voice, "Pray, doctor, how went bank-stock
to-day at 'Change?" This melancholy object made me too serious for
diverting myself further this way: but as I was going home, I saw a light in
a garret, and entering into it, heard a voice crying, "And, hand, stand, band,
fanned, tanned." I concluded him by this, and the furniture of his room, to
be a lunatic; but upon listening a little longer, perceived it was a poet,
writing an heroic upon the ensuing peace.
It was now towards morning, an hour when spirits, witches, and conjurers
are obliged to retire to their own apartments, and feeling the influence of it,
I was hastening home, when I saw a man had got half way into a
neighbour's house. I immediately called to him, and turning my ring,
appeared in my proper person. There is something magisterial in the aspect
of the Bickerstaffs, which made him run away in confusion.
As I took a turn or two in my own lodging, I was thinking, that, old as I
was, I need not go to bed alone, but that it was in my power to marry the
finest lady in this kingdom, if I would wed her with this ring. For what a
figure would she that should have it make at a visit, with so perfect a
knowledge as this would give her of all the scandal in the town? But instead
of endeavouring to dispose of myself and it in matrimony, I resolved to lend
it to my loving friend the author of the "Atalantis,"[161] to furnish a new
Secret History of Secret Memoirs.

FOOTNOTES:
[159] See No. 138.
[160] Iago's words ("Othello," act iii. sc. 3) are, "There are a kind of men so
loose of soul that in their sleeps will mutter their affairs; one of this kind is
Cassio."
[161] Mrs. Manley (see Nos. 35 and 63). In the dedication prefixed to her play
of "Lucius" (1717), Mrs. Manley made public apology for the attacks upon
Steele in her earlier writings: "I have not known a greater mortification than
when I have reflected upon the severities which have flowed from a pen which is
now, you see, disposed as much to celebrate and commend you."

No. 244. [Steele.
From Saturday, Oct. 28, to Tuesday, Oct. 31, 1710.

Quid voveat dulci nutricula majus alumno,
Qui sapere et fari possit quæ sentiat?——

Hor., I Ep. iv. 8.

Will's Coffee-house, Oct. 30.

t is no easy matter when people are advancing in anything, to prevent
I their going too fast for want of patience. This happens in nothing more
frequently than in the prosecution of studies. Hence it is, that we meet
crowds who attempt to be eloquent before they can speak. They affect the
flowers of rhetoric before they understand the parts of speech. In the
ordinary conversation of this town, there are so many who can, as they call
it, talk well, that there is not one in twenty that talks to be understood. This
proceeds from an ambition to excel, or, as the term is, to shine, in company.
The matter is not to make themselves understood, but admired. They come
together with a certain emulation, rather than benevolence. When you fall
among such companions, the safe way is to give yourself up, and let the
orators declaim for your esteem, and trouble yourself no further. It is said
that a poet must be born so; but I think it may be much better said of an
orator, especially when we talk of our town poets and orators; but the town
poets are full of rules and laws, the town orators go through thick and thin,
and are, forsooth, persons of such eminent natural parts and knowledge of
the world, that they despise all men as inexperienced scholastics who wait
for an occasion before they speak, or who speak no more than is necessary.
They had half persuaded me to go to the tavern the other night, but that a
gentleman whispered me, "Prithee, Isaac, go with us; there is Tom Varnish
will be there, and he is a fellow that talks as well as any man in England."

I must confess, when a man expresses himself well upon any occasion, and
his falling into an account of any subject arises from a desire to oblige the
company, or from fulness of the circumstance itself, so that his speaking of
it at large is occasioned only by the openness of a companion; I say, in such
a case as this, it is not only pardonable, but agreeable, when a man takes the
discourse to himself; but when you see a fellow watch for opportunities for
being copious, it is excessively troublesome. A man that stammers, if he has
understanding, is to be attended with patience and good-nature; but he that
speaks more than he need, has no right to such an indulgence. The man who
has a defect in his speech takes pains to come to you, while a man of a
weak capacity with fluency of speech triumphs in outrunning you. The
stammerer strives to be fit for your company; the loquacious man
endeavours to show you, you are not fit for his.
With thoughts of this kind do I always enter into that man's company who is
recommended as a person that talks well; but if I were to choose the people
with whom I would spend my hours of conversation, they should be
certainly such as laboured no further than to make themselves readily and
clearly apprehended, and would have patience and curiosity to understand
me. To have good sense, and ability to express it, are the most essential and
necessary qualities in companions. When thoughts rise in us fit to utter,
among familiar friends there needs but very little care in clothing them.
Urbanus is, I take it, a man one might live with whole years, and enjoy all
the freedom and improvement imaginable, and yet be insensible of a
contradiction to you in all the mistakes you can be guilty of. His great good-
will to his friends has produced in him such a general deference in his
discourse, that if he differs from you in his sense of anything, he introduces
his own thoughts by some agreeable circumlocution, or he has often
observed such and such a circumstance that made him of another opinion.
Again, where another would be apt to say, "This I am confident of; I may
pretend to judge of this matter as well as anybody;" Urbanus says, "I am
verily persuaded; I believe one may conclude." In a word, there is no man
more clear in his thoughts and expressions than he is, or speaks with greater
diffidence. You shall hardly find one man of any consideration, but you
shall observe one of less consequence form himself after him. This happens
to Urbanus; but the man who steals from him almost every sentiment he
utters in a whole week, disguises the theft, by carrying it with quite a

different air. Umbratilis knows Urbanus's doubtful way of speaking
proceeds from good-nature and good-breeding, and not from uncertainty in
his opinions. Umbratilis therefore has no more to do but repeat the thoughts
of Urbanus in a positive manner, and appear to the undiscerning a wiser
man than the person from whom he borrows: but those who know him, can
see the servant in his master's habit; and the more he struts, the less do his
clothes appear his own.
In conversation, the medium is neither to affect silence or eloquence; not to
value our approbation, and to endeavour to excel us who are of your
company, are equal injuries. The great enemies therefore to good company,
and those who transgress most against the laws of equality (which is the life
of it), are, the clown, the wit, and the pedant. A clown, when he has sense, is
conscious of his want of education, and with an awkward bluntness hopes
to keep himself in countenance, by overthrowing the use of all polite
behaviour. He takes advantage of the restraint good-breeding lays upon
others not to offend him to trespass against them, and is under the man's
own shelter while he intrudes upon him. The fellows of this class are very
frequent in the repetition of the words "rough" and "manly." When these
people happen to be by their fortunes of the rank of gentlemen, they defend
their other absurdities by an impertinent courage; and to help out the defect
of their behaviour, add their being dangerous to their being disagreeable.
This gentleman (though he displeases, professes to do so, and knowing that,
dares still go on to do so) is not so painful a companion as he who will
please you against your will, and resolves to be a wit.
This man upon all occasions, and whoever he falls in company with, talks
in the same circle, and in the same round of chat which he has learned at
one of the tables of this coffee-house. As poetry is in itself an elevation
above ordinary and common sentiments, so there is no fop is so very near a
madman in indifferent company as a poetical one. He is not apprehensive
that the generality of the world are intent upon the business of their own
fortune and profession, and have as little capacity as curiosity to enter into
matters of ornament or speculation. I remember at a full table in the city,
one of these ubiquitary wits was entertaining the company with a soliloquy
(for so I call it when a man talks to those who do not understand him)
concerning wit and humour. An honest gentleman who sat next to me, and
was worth half a plum, stared at him, and observing there was some sense,

as he thought, mixed with his impertinence, whispered me, "Take my word
for it, this fellow is more knave than fool." This was all my good friend's
applause of the wittiest man of talk that I was ever present at, which wanted
nothing to make it excellent but that there was no occasion for it.
The pedant is so obvious to ridicule, that it would be to be one to offer to
explain him. He is a gentleman so well known, that there is none but those
of his own class who do not laugh at and avoid him. Pedantry proceeds
from much reading and little understanding. A pedant among men of
learning and sense, is like an ignorant servant giving an account of a polite
conversation. You may find he has brought with him more than could have
entered into his head without being there, but still that he is not a bit wiser
than if he had not been there at all.

No. 245. [Steele.
From Tuesday, Oct. 31, to Thursday, Nov. 2, 1710.
From my own Apartment, Nov. 1.

he lady hereafter mentioned having come to me in very great haste, and
T paid me much above the usual fee as a cunning man to find her stolen
goods, and also having approved my late discourse of advertisements,
[162]
obliged me to draw up this, and insert it in the body of my paper:

Advertisement.

hereas Bridget Howd'ee,[163] late servant to the Lady Farthingale, a
W short, thick, lively, hard-favoured wench, of about twenty-nine years
of age, her eyes small and bleared, her nose very broad at bottom,
and turning up at the end, her mouth wide, and lips of an unusual thickness,
two teeth out before, the rest black and uneven, the tip of her left ear being
of a mouse-colour, her voice loud and shrill, quick of speech, and
something of a Welsh accent; withdrew herself on Wednesday last from her
ladyship's dwelling-house, and, with the help of her consorts, carried off the
following goods of her said lady—viz., a thick wadded calico wrapper, a
musk-coloured velvet mantle lined with squirrel-skins, eight night-shifts,
four pair of silk stockings curiously darned, six pair of laced shoes, new and
old, with the heels of half two inches higher than their fellows; a quilted
petticoat of the largest size, and one of canvas with whalebone hoops; three
pair of stays, bolstered below the left shoulder; two pair of hips of the
newest fashion, six roundabout aprons with pockets, and four striped muslin
night-rails very little frayed; a silver pot for coffee or chocolate, the lid
much bruised; a broad-brimmed flat silver plate for sugar with Rhenish
wine, a silver ladle for plum-porridge; a silver cheese-toaster with three
tongues, an ebony handle, and silvering at the end; a silver posnet[164] to
butter eggs; one caudle and two cordial-water cups, two cocoa cups, and an
ostrich's egg, with rims and feet of silver; a marrow spoon, with a scoop at

the other end; a silver orange-strainer, eight sweetmeat spoons made with
forks at the end, an agate-handle knife and fork in a sheath, a silver tongue-
scraper, a silver tobacco-box, with a tulip graved on the top; and a Bible
bound in shagreen, with gilt leaves and clasps, never opened but once. Also
a small cabinet, with six drawers inlaid with red tortoise-shell, and brass gilt
ornaments at the four corners, in which were two leather forehead cloths,
three pair of oiled dogskin gloves,[165] seven cakes of superfine Spanish
wool, half-a-dozen of Portugal dishes, and a quire of paper from thence;
two pair of brand-new plumpers, four black-lead combs, three pair of
fashionable eyebrows,[166] two sets of ivory teeth, little the worse for
wearing, and one pair of box for common use; Adam and Eve in bugle-
work, without fig-leaves, upon canvas, curiously wrought with her
ladyship's own hand; several filigrane curiosities; a crochet of 122
diamonds, set strong and deep in silver, with a rump jewel after the same
fashion; bracelets of braided hair, pomander, and seed-pearl; a large old
purple velvet purse, embroidered, and shutting with a spring, containing
two pictures in miniature, the features visible; a broad thick gold ring with a
hand in hand graved upon it, and within this posy, "While life does last, I'll
hold thee fast;" another set round with small rubies and sparks, six wanting;
another of Turkey stone[167] cracked through the middle; an Elizabeth and
four Jacobus's, one guinea the first of the coin, an angel with a hole bored
through, a broken half of a Spanish piece of gold, a crown piece with the
breeches,[168] an old nine-pence bent both ways by Lilly,[169] the almanac
maker, for luck at langteraloo,[170] and twelve of the shells called
blackamoor's teeth; one small amber box with apoplectic balsam, and one
silver gilt of a larger size for cashu[171] and caraway comfits, to be taken at
long sermons, the lid enamelled, representing a Cupid fishing for hearts,
with a piece of gold on his hook; over his head this rhyme, "Only with gold
you me shall hold." In the lower drawer was a large new gold repeating
watch, made by a Frenchman; a gold chain, and all the proper
appurtenances hung upon steel swivels, to wit, lockets with the hair of dead
and living lovers, seals with arms, emblems and devices cut in cornelian,
agate, and onyx, with Cupids, hearts, darts, altars, flames, rocks, pick-axes,
roses, thorns, and sun-flowers; as also variety of ingenious French mottoes;
together with gold etuis for quills, scissors, needles, thimbles, and a sponge
dipped in Hungary water, left but the night before by a young lady going

upon a frolic incog. There was also a bundle of letters, dated between the
years 1670 and 1682, most of them signed Philander, the rest Strephon,
Amyntas, Corydon, and Adonis; together with a collection of receipts to
make pastes for the hands, pomatums, lip-salves, white-pots,[172]
beautifying creams, water of talc,[173] and frog spawn water; decoctions for
clearing the complexion, and an approved medicine to procure abortion.
Whoever can discover the aforesaid goods, so that they may be had again,
shall have fifty guineas for the whole, or proportionable for any part. N.B.
—Her ladyship is pleased to promise ten pounds for the packet of letters
over and above, or five for Philander's only, being her first love. My lady
bestows those of Strephon to the finder, being so written, that they may
serve to any woman who reads them.

Postscript.

As I am patron of persons who have no other friend to apply to, I cannot
suppress the following complaint:

"Sir,
am a blackamoor boy, and have, by my lady's order, been christened
"I by the chaplain. The good man has gone further with me, and told me
a great deal of good news; as, that I am as good as my lady herself, as
I am a Christian, and many other things: but, for all this, the parrot who
came over with me from our country is as much esteemed by her as I am.
Besides this, the shock-dog has a collar that cost almost as much as mine.
[174]
I desire also to know, whether now I am a Christian, I am obliged to
dress like a Turk and wear a turban. I am,
"Sir,
"Your most humble Servant,
"Pompey.
"

FOOTNOTES:
[162] See No. 224.
[163] See No. 109.
[164] A small basin. Bacon speaks of utensils which will endure fire, such as
"chafing-dishes, posnets, and such other silver dishes."
[165] The cloths and gloves were to soften the skin; the Spanish wool and
Portugal dishes for "complexions"; the plumpers for the cheeks. The black-lead
combs were for darkening the hair. By ivory and box teeth, tooth-combs are
probably intended (Dobson). Perhaps, however, the "teeth" are artificial teeth.
[166] Cf. Steele's "The Tender Husband," act iii. sc. I: "Prithee, wench, bring me
my black eyebrows out of the next room." Prior often refers to this subject-thus:

"The slattern had left in the hurry and haste
Her lady's complexion and eyebrows at Calais;"

and when the kitten had stolen Helen's eyebrows, a trap was at once baited:

"If we don't catch a mouse to-night,
Alas! no eyebrows for to-morrow!"

[167] Turquoise.
[168] The two shields on Oliver Cromwell's coins were vulgarly called
"breeches," because they somewhat resembled vast trunk-hose.
[169] See No. 240.
[170] Lanterloo, lantrillou, or lanctreloo, a game at cards in which the knave of
clubs is the highest card. Cf. lanturloo (Fr.), nonsense. The game is mentioned,
says Strutt, in the "Complete Gamester" (1734). In a letter in the Spectator, No.
245, we find the following: "I would have these sports and pastimes not only
merry, but innocent, for which reason I have not mentioned either whisk or
lanterloo, nor indeed so much as one-and-thirty."
[171] Cachou, for sweetening the breath.
[172] A spiced custard pudding formerly a favourite dish in Devonshire. See
Spectator, No. 109, and Gay's "Shepherd's Week" (Monday):
"White-pot thick is my Buxoma's fare."
[173] A cosmetic.
[174] On the black marble bust of the favourite slave of William III., at Hampton
Court, there is a white marble collar, with a padlock. Contemporary
advertisements show that negro servants often wore a collar bearing the name of
their master. In No. 132 of the original issue of the Tatler there was this
advertisement: "A black Indian boy, twelve years of age, fit to wait on a

gentleman, to be disposed of at Denis's Coffee-house, in Finch Lane, near the
Royal Exchange." The reward offered for the recovery of a runaway black
servant rarely exceeded a guinea.

No. 246. [Steele.
From Thursday, Nov. 2, to Saturday, Nov. 4, 1710.

----Vitiis nemo sine nascitur, optimus ille est
Qui minimis urgetur.——

Hor., 1 Sat. iii. 68.

From my own Apartment, Nov. 3.

hen one considers the turn which conversation takes in almost every
W set of acquaintance, club or assembly, in this town or kingdom, one
cannot but observe, that in spite of what I am every day saying, and
all the moral writers since the beginning of the world have said, the subject
of discourse is generally upon one another's faults. This in a great measure
proceeds from self-conceit, which were to be endured in one or other
individual person; but the folly has spread itself almost over all the species;
and one cannot only say, Tom, Jack, or Will, but in general, that man is a
coxcomb. From this source it is that any excellence is faintly received, any
imperfection unmercifully exposed. But if things were put in a true light,
and we would take time to consider that man in his very nature is an
imperfect being, our sense of this matter would be immediately altered, and
the word "imperfection" would not carry an unkinder idea than the word
"humanity." It is a pleasant story, that we, forsooth, who are the only
imperfect creatures in the universe, are the only beings that will not allow
of imperfection. Somebody has taken notice, that we stand in the middle of
existences, and are by this one circumstance the most unhappy of all others.
The brutes are guided by instinct, and know no sorrow; the angels have
knowledge, and they are happy; but men are governed by opinion, which is
I know not what mixture of instinct and knowledge, and are neither indolent
nor happy. It is very observable, that critics are a people between the
learned and the ignorant, and by that situation enjoy the tranquillity of
neither. As critics stand among men, so do men in general between brutes

and angels. Thus every man as he is a critic and a coxcomb, till improved
by reason and speculation, is ever forgetting himself, and laying open the
faults of others.
At the same time that I am talking of the cruelty of urging people's faults
with severity, I cannot but bewail some which men are guilty of for want of
admonition. These are such as they can easily mend, and nobody tells them
of; for which reason I shall make use of the penny-post (as I have with
success to several young ladies about turning their eyes, and holding up
their heads) to certain gentlemen whom I remark habitually guilty of what
they may reform in a moment. There is a fat fellow whom I have long
remarked wearing his breast open in the midst of winter, out of an
affectation of youth. I have therefore sent him just now the following letter
in my physical capacity:

"Sir,
rom the twentieth instant to the first of May next, both days
"F inclusive, I beg of you to button your waistcoat from your collar to
your waistband. I am,
"Your most humble Servant,
"Isaac Bickerstaff, Philomath."[175]
There is a very handsome well-shaped youth that frequents the coffee-
houses about Charing Cross, and ties a very pretty ribbon with a cross of
jewels at his breast.[176] This being something new, and a thing in which the
gentleman may offend the Heralds' Office, I have addressed myself to him
as I am censor:

"Dear Countryman,
as that ensign of honour which you wear, given you by a prince or
"W a lady that you have served? If you bear it as an absent lover,

please to hang it on a black ribbon; if as a rewarded soldier, you may have
my licence to continue the red.
"Your faithful Servant,
"Bickerstaff, Censor."
These little intimations do great service, and are very useful, not only to the
persons themselves, but to inform others how to conduct themselves
towards them.
Instead of this honest private method, or a friendly one face to face, of
acquainting people with things in their power to explain or amend, the usual
way among people is to take no notice of things you can help, and
nevertheless expose you for those you cannot.
Plumbeus and Levis are constantly in each other's company: they would, if
they took proper methods, be very agreeable companions; but they so
extravagantly aim at what they are unfit for, and each of them rallies the
other so much in the wrong place, that instead of doing each other the
offices of friends, they do but instruct the rest of the world to laugh at them
with more knowledge and skill. Plumbeus is of a saturnine and sullen
complexion; Levis, of a mercurial and airy disposition. Both these
gentlemen have but very slow parts, but would make a very good figure, did
they pursue what they ought. If Plumbeus would take to business, he would
in a few years know the forms of orders so well, as to direct and dictate
with so much ease, as to be thought a solid, able, and at the same time a
sure man of despatch. Levis, with a little reading and coming more into
company, would soon be able to write a song, or lead up a country-dance.
Instead of these proper pursuits, in obedience to their respective geniuses,
Plumbeus endeavours to be the man of pleasure, and Levis the man of
business. This appears in their speech, and in their dress: Plumbeus is ever
egregiously fine, and talking something like wit; Levis is ever extremely
grave, and with a silly face repeating maxims. These two pardon each other
for affecting what each is incapable of, the one to be wise, and the other
gay; but are extremely critical in their judgments of each other in their way
towards what they pretend to. Plumbeus acknowledges Levis a man of a
great reach, because it is what Plumbeus never cared for being thought
himself; and Levis allows Plumbeus to be an agreeable rake for the same
reason. Now were these dear friends to be free with each other as they

ought to be, they would change characters, and be both as commendable,
instead of being as ridiculous, as their capacities will admit of.
Were it not too grave, all that I would urge on this subject is, that men are
bewildered when they consider themselves in any other view than that of
strangers, who are in a place where it is no great matter whether they can, or
unreasonable to expect they should, have everything about them as well as
at their own home. This way of thinking is, perhaps, the only one that can
put this being into a proper posture for the ease of society. It is certain, this
would reduce all faults into those which proceed from malice or dishonesty:
it would quite change our manner of beholding one another, and nothing
that was not below a man's nature would be below his character. The arts of
this life would be proper advances towards the next; and a very good man
would be a very fine gentleman. As it now is, human life is inverted, and we
have not learned half the knowledge of this world before we are dropping
into another. Thus, instead of the raptures and contemplations which
naturally attend a well-spent life from the approach of eternity, even we old
fellows are afraid of the ridicule of those who are born since us, and
ashamed not to understand, as well as peevish to resign, the mode, the
fashion, the ladies, the fiddles, the balls, and what not. Dick Reptile, who
does not want humour, is very pleasant at our club when he sees an old
fellow touchy at being laughed at for anything that is not in the mode, and
bawls in his ear, "Prithee don't mind him; tell him thou art mortal."

FOOTNOTES:
[175] See No. 95.
[176] Possibly Colonel Ambrose Edgworth, a great dandy, whom Swift calls
"that prince of puppies" ("Journal to Stella," Oct. 17, 1710).

No. 247. [Steele.
By Jenny Distaff, Half-Sister to Mr.
Bickerstaff.
From Saturday, Nov. 4, to Tuesday, Nov. 7, 1710.

Ædepol, næ nos sumus ... æque omnes invisæ viris,
Propter paucas; quæ omnes faciunt dignæ ut videamur malo.

Ter., Hecyra, act ii. sc. 3.

From my own Apartment, Nov. 6.

y brother, having written the above piece of Latin, desired me to take
M care of the rest of the ensuing paper. Towards this he bid me answer
the following letter, and said, nothing I could write properly on the
subject of it would be disagreeable to the motto. It is the cause of my sex,
and I therefore enter upon it with great alacrity. The epistle is literally thus:

Edinburgh, Oct. 23.
"Mr. Bickerstaff,
presume to lay before you an affair of mine, and begs you'le be very
"I sinceir in giving me your judgment and advice in this matter, which is
as followes:
"A very agreeable young gentleman, who is endowed with all the good
quallities that can make a man compleat, has this long time maid love to me
in the most passionat manner that was posable. He has left nothing unsaid
to make me belive his affections real; and in his letters expressed himself so
hansomly, and so tenderly, that I had all the reason imaginable to belive him

sinceir. In short, he positively has promised me he would marry me: but I
find all he said nothing; for when the question was put to him, he wouldn't;
but still would continue my humble servant, and would go on at the ould
rate, repeating the assurences of his fidelity (and at the same time has none
in him). He now writs to me in the same endearing style he ust to do, would
have me spake to no man but himself. His estate is in his oune hand, his
father being dead. My fortune at my oune disposal (mine being also dead),
and to the full answers his estate. Pray, sir, be ingeinous, and tell me
cordially, if you don't think I shall do myself an injurey if I keep company
or a corospondance any longer with this gentleman. I hope you'le faver an
honest North Briton (as I am) with your advice in this amoure; for I am
resolved just to folow your directions. Sir, you'le do me a sensable pleasure,
and very great honour, if you'le pleas to insirt this poor scrole, with your
answer to it, in your Tatler. Pray fail not to give me your answer; for on it
depends the happiness of
"Disconsolat Almeira."

"Madam,
have frequently read over your letter, and am of opinion, that as
"I lamentable as it is, it is the most common of any evil that attends our
sex. I am very much troubled for the tenderness you express towards
your lover, but rejoice at the same time that you can so far surmount your
inclination for him as to resolve to dismiss him when you have my brother's
opinion for it. His sense of the matter he desired me to communicate to you.
O Almeira! the common failing of our sex is to value the merit of our lovers
rather from the grace of their address than the sincerity of their hearts. 'He
has expressed himself so handsomely!' Can you say that after you have
reason to doubt his truth? It is a very melancholy thing, that in this
circumstance of love (which is the most important of all others in female
life) we women, who are, they say, always weak, are still weakest. The true
way of valuing a man, is to consider his reputation among the men: for want
of this necessary rule towards our conduct, when it is too late we find
ourselves married to the outcasts of that sex; and it is generally from being
disagreeable among men, that fellows endeavour to make themselves

pleasing to us. The little accomplishments of coming into a room with a
good air, and telling while they are with us what we cannot hear among
ourselves, usually make up the whole of a woman's man's merit. But if we,
when we began to reflect upon our lovers, in the first place considered what
figures they make in the camp, at the bar, on the 'Change, in their country,
or at court, we should behold them in quite another view than at present.
"Were we to behave ourselves according to this rule, we should not have the
just imputation of favouring the silliest of mortals, to the great scandal of
the wisest, who value our favour as it advances their pleasure, not their
reputation. In a word, madam, if you would judge aright in love, you must
look upon it as in a case of friendship. Were this gentleman treating with
you for anything but yourself, when you had consented to his offer, if he
fell off, you would call him a cheat and an impostor. There is therefore
nothing left for you to do, but to despise him and yourself for doing with
regret.
"I am,
"
Madam, &c."
I have heard it often argued in conversation, that this evil practice is owing
to the perverted taste of the wits in the last generation. A libertine on the
throne could very easily make the language and the fashion turn his own
way. Hence it is, that woman is treated as a mistress, and not a wife. It is
from the writings of those times, and the traditional accounts of the
debauches of their men of pleasure, that the coxcombs nowadays take upon
them, forsooth, to be false swains and perjured lovers. Methinks I feel all
the woman rise in me, when I reflect upon the nauseous rogues that pretend
to deceive us. Wretches, that can never have it in their power to overreach
anything living but their mistresses! In the name of goodness, if we are
designed by nature as suitable companions to the other sex, why are we not
treated accordingly? If we have merit, as some allow, why is it not as base
in men to injure us as one another? If we are the insignificants that others
call us, where is the triumph in deceiving us? But when I look at the bottom
of this disaster, and recollect the many of my acquaintance whom I have
known in the same condition with the Northern lass that occasions this
discourse, I must own I have ever found the perfidiousness of men has been
generally owing to ourselves, and we have contributed to our own deceit.

The truth is, we do not conduct ourselves as we are courted, but as we are
inclined. When we let our imaginations take this unbridled swing, it is not
he that acts best is most lovely, but he that is most lovely acts best. When
our humble servants make their addresses, we do not keep ourselves enough
disengaged to be judges of their merit; and we seldom give our judgment of
our lover, till we have lost our judgment for him.
While Clarinda was passionately attended and addressed to by Strephon,
who is a man of sense and knowledge in the world, and Cassio, who has a
plentiful fortune and an excellent understanding, she fell in love with
Damon at a ball: from that moment she that was before the most reasonable
creature of all my acquaintance, cannot hear Strephon speak, but it is
something "so out of the way of ladies' conversation;" and Cassio has never
since opened his mouth before us, but she whispers me, "How seldom do
riches and sense go together!" The issue of all this is, that for the love of
Damon, who has neither experience, understanding, or wealth, she despises
those advantages in the other two which she finds wanting in her lover; or
else thinks he has them for no reason but because he is her lover. This and
many other instances may be given in this town; but I hope thus much may
suffice to prevent the growth of such evils at Edinburgh.

No. 248. [Steele.
By Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq.
From Tuesday, Nov. 7, to Thursday, Nov. 9, 1710.

——Media sese tulit obvia silva,
Virginis os habitumque gerens——

Virg., Æn. i. 314.

From my own Apartment, Nov. 8.

t may perhaps appear ridiculous; but I must confess, this last summer as I
I was riding in Enfield Chase, I met a young lady whom I could hardly get
out of my head, and for aught I know my heart, ever since.[177] She was
mounted on a pad, with a very well-fancied furniture. She sat her horse with
a very graceful air; and when I saluted her with my hat, she bowed to me so
obligingly, that whether it was her civility or beauty that touched me so
much, I know not, but I am sure I shall never forget her. She dwells in my
imagination in a figure so much to her advantage, that if I were to draw a
picture of youth, health, beauty, or modesty, I should represent any or all of
them in the person of that young woman.
I do not find that there are any descriptions in the ancient poets so beautiful
as those they draw of nymphs in their pastoral dresses and exercises. Virgil
gives Venus the habit of a Spartan huntress when she is to put Æneas in his
way, and relieve his cares with the most agreeable object imaginable.[178]
Diana and her train are always described as inhabitants of the woods, and
followers of the chase. To be well diverted, is the safest guard to innocence;
and, methinks, it should be one of the first things to be regarded among
people of condition to find out proper amusements for young ladies. I
cannot but think this of riding might easily be revived among them, when
they consider how much it must contribute to their beauty. This would lay

up the best portion they could bring into a family, a good stock of health to
transmit to their posterity. Such a charming bloom as this gives the
countenance, is very much preferable to the real or affected feebleness or
softness which appear in the faces of our modern beauties.
The comedy called "The Ladies' Cure,"[179] represents the affectation of
wan looks and languid glances to a very entertaining extravagance. There
is, as the lady in the play complains, something so robust in perfect health,
that it is with her a point of breeding and delicacy to appear in public with a
sickly air. But the natural gaiety and spirit which shine in the complexion of
such as form to themselves a sort of diverting industry by choosing
recreations that are exercises, surpass all the false ornaments and graces that
can be put on by applying the whole dispensary of a toilet. A healthy body
and a cheerful mind give charms as irresistible as inimitable. The beauteous
Dyctinna, who came to town last week, has, from the constant prospect in a
delicious country, and the moderate exercise and journeys in the visits she
made round it, contracted a certain life in her countenance which will in
vain employ both the painters and poets to represent. The becoming
negligence in her dress, the severe sweetness of her looks, and a certain
innocent boldness in all her behaviour, are the effect of the active
recreations I am talking of.
But instead of such or any other as innocent and pleasing method of passing
away their time with alacrity, we have many in town who spend their hours
in an indolent state of body and mind, without either recreations or
reflections. I am apt to believe, there are some parents imagine their
daughters will be accomplished enough, if nothing interrupts their growth
or their shape. According to this method of education, I could name you
twenty families, where all the girls hear of in this life is, that it is time to
rise and to come to dinner; as if they were so insignificant as to be wholly
provided for when they are fed and clothed.
It is with great indignation that I see such crowds of the female world lost to
human society, and condemned to a laziness which makes life pass away
with less relish than in the hardest labour. Palestris, in her drawing-room, is
supported by spirits to keep off the returns of spleen and melancholy, before
she can get over half the day for want of something to do, while the wench
in the kitchen sings and scours from morning to night.

The next disagreeable thing to a lazy lady is a very busy one. A man of
business in good company, who gives an account of his abilities and
despatches, is hardly more insupportable than her they call a notable
woman and a manager. Lady Goodday, where I visited the other day at a
very polite circle, entertained a great lady with a recipe for a poultice, and
gave us to understand, that she had done extraordinary cures since she was
last in town. It seems a countryman had wounded himself with his scythe as
he was mowing; and we were obliged to hear of her charity, her medicine,
and her humility, in the harshest tone and coarsest language imaginable.
What I would request in all this prattle is, that our females would either let
us have their persons or their minds in such perfection as nature designed
them.
The way to this is, that those who are in the quality of gentlewomen should
propose to themselves some suitable method of passing away their time.
This would furnish them with reflections and sentiments proper for the
companions of reasonable men, and prevent the unnatural marriages which
happen every day between the most accomplished women and the veriest
oafs, the worthiest men and the most insignificant females. Were the general
turn of women's education of another kind than it is at present, we should
want one another for more reasons than we do as the world now goes. The
common design of parents is to get their girls off as well as they can, and
make no conscience of putting into our hands a bargain for our whole life
which will make our hearts ache every day of it.
I shall therefore take this matter into serious consideration, and will
propose, for the better improvement of the fair sex, a female library.[180]
This collection of books shall consist of such authors as do not corrupt
while they divert, but shall tend more immediately to improve them, as they
are women. They shall be such as shall not hurt a feature by the austerity of
their reflections, nor cause one impertinent glance by the wantonness of
them. They shall all tend to advance the value of their innocence as virgins,
improve their understanding as wives, and regulate their tenderness as
parents. It has been very often said in these Lucubrations, that the ideas
which most frequently pass through our imaginations, leave traces of
themselves in our countenances. There shall be a strict regard had to this in
my female library, which shall be furnished with nothing that shall give
supplies to ostentation or impertinence; but the whole shall be so digested

for the use of my students, that they shall not go out of character in their
inquiries, but their knowledge appear only a cultivated innocence.

FOOTNOTES:
[177] This lady is believed to have been the unfortunate Elizabeth Malyn, whose
third husband was Charles, eighth Lord Cathcart. Her fourth husband was
Colonel Hugh Macguire, who kept her in confinement for more than twenty
years at Tempo, in Enniskillen. (See Miss Edgeworth's "Castle Rackrent"; and a
pamphlet entitled "Tewin-Water; or, the Story of Lady Cathcart," by Mr. Edward
Ford, of Old Park, Enfield.)
[178] "Æneid," i. 315 seq.
[179] "The Double Gallant; or, the Sick Lady's Cure," by Colley Cibber (1707).
[180] Addison wrote on this subject in the Spectator (No. 37); and in 1714
Steele published "The Ladies' Library," in three volumes, a gathering from the
most approved religious and moral writers.

No. 249. [Addison.
From Thursday, Nov. 9, to Saturday, Nov. 11, 1710.

Per varios casus, per tot discrimina rerum,
Tendimus——

Virg., Æn. i. 204.

From my own Apartment, Nov. 10.

was last night visited by a friend[181] of mine who has an inexhaustible
I fund of discourse, and never fails to entertain his company with a variety
of thoughts and hints that are altogether new and uncommon. Whether it
were in complaisance to my way of living, or his real opinion, he advanced
the following paradox, that it required much greater talents to fill up and
become a retired life than a life of business. Upon this occasion he rallied
very agreeably the busy men of the age, who only valued themselves for
being in motion, and passing through a series of trifling and insignificant
actions. In the heat of his discourse, seeing a piece of money lying on my
table, "I defy," says he, "any of these active persons to produce half the
adventures that this twelvepenny-piece has been engaged in, were it
possible for him to give us an account of his life."
My friend's talk made so odd an impression upon my mind, that soon after I
was a-bed I fell insensibly into a most unaccountable reverie, that had
neither moral nor design in it, and cannot be so properly called a dream as a
delirium.
Methought the shilling that lay upon the table reared itself upon its edge,
and turning the face towards me, opened its mouth, and in a soft silver
sound gave me the following account of his life and adventures:
"I was born," says he, "on the side of a mountain, near a little village of
Peru, and made a voyage to England in an ingot, under the convoy of Sir

Francis Drake. I was, soon after my arrival, taken out of my Indian habit,
refined, naturalised, and put into the British mode, with the face of Queen
Elizabeth on one side, and the arms of the country on the other. Being thus
equipped, I found in me a wonderful inclination to ramble, and visit all the
parts of the new world into which I was brought. The people very much
favoured my natural disposition, and shifted me so fast from hand to hand,
that before I was five years old, I had travelled into almost every corner of
the nation. But in the beginning of my sixth year, to my unspeakable grief, I
fell into the hands of a miserable old fellow, who clapped me into an iron
chest, where I found five hundred more of my own quality who lay under
the same confinement. The only relief we had, was to be taken out and
counted over in the fresh air every morning and evening. After an
imprisonment of several years, we heard somebody knocking at our chest,
and breaking it open with a hammer. This we found was the old man's heir,
who, as his father lay a-dying, was so good as to come to our release: he
separated us that very day. What was the fate of my companions, I know
not: as for myself, I was sent to the apothecary's shop for a pint of sack. The
apothecary gave me to a herb-woman, the herb-woman to a butcher, the
butcher to a brewer, and the brewer to his wife, who made a present of me
to a Nonconformist preacher. After this manner I made my way merrily
through the world; for, as I told you before, we shillings love nothing so
much as travelling. I sometimes fetched in a shoulder of mutton, sometimes
a play-book, and often had the satisfaction to treat a Templar at a
twelvepenny ordinary, or carry him with three friends to Westminster Hall.
"In the midst of this pleasant progress which I made from place to place, I
was arrested by a superstitious old woman, who shut me up in a greasy
purse, in pursuance of a foolish saying, that while she kept a Queen
Elizabeth's shilling about her, she should never be without money. I
continued here a close prisoner for many months, till at last I was
exchanged for eight-and-forty farthings.
"I thus rambled from pocket to pocket till the beginning of the Civil Wars,
when, to my shame be it spoken, I was employed in raising soldiers against
the King; for being of a very tempting breadth, a sergeant made use of me
to inveigle country fellows, and list them in the service of the Parliament.
"As soon as he had made one man sure, his way was to oblige him to take a
shilling of a more homely figure, and then practise the same trick upon

another. Thus I continued doing great mischief to the Crown, till my officer
chancing one morning to walk abroad earlier than ordinary, sacrificed me to
his pleasures, and made use of me to seduce a milkmaid. This wench bent
me, and gave me to her sweetheart, applying more properly than she
intended the usual form of, 'To my love and from my love.' This ungenerous
gallant marrying her within few days after, pawned me for a dram of
brandy, and drinking me out next day, I was beaten flat with a hammer, and
again set a-running.
"After many adventures, which it would be tedious to relate, I was sent to a
young spendthrift, in company with the will of his deceased father. The
young fellow, who I found was very extravagant, gave great demonstrations
of joy at the receiving the will; but opening it, he found himself disinherited
and cut off from the possession of a fair estate, by virtue of my being made
a present to him. This put him into such a passion, that after having taken
me in his hand, and cursed me, he squirred[182] me away from him as far as
he could fling me. I chanced to light in an unfrequented place under a dead
wall, where I lay undiscovered and useless during the usurpation of Oliver
Cromwell.
"About a year after the King's return, a poor cavalier that was walking there
about dinner-time fortunately cast his eye upon me, and, to the great joy of
us both, carried me to a cook's-shop, where he dined upon me, and drank
the King's health. When I came again into the world, I found that I had been
happier in my retirement than I thought, having probably by that means
escaped wearing a monstrous pair of breeches.[183]
"Being now of great credit and antiquity, I was rather looked upon as a
medal than an ordinary coin; for which reason a gamester laid hold of me,
and converted me to a counter, having got together some dozens of us for
that use. We led a melancholy life in his possession, being busy at those
hours wherein current coin is at rest, and partaking the fate of our master,
being in a few moments valued at a crown, a pound, or a sixpence,
according to the situation in which the fortune of the cards placed us. I had
at length the good luck to see my master break, by which means I was again
sent abroad under my primitive denomination of a shilling.
"I shall pass over many other accidents of less moment, and hasten to that
fatal catastrophe when I fell into the hands of an artist, who conveyed me

under ground, and with an unmerciful pair of shears cut off my titles,
clipped my brims, retrenched my shape, rubbed me to my inmost ring, and,
in short, so spoiled and pillaged me, that he did not leave me worth a groat.
You may think what a confusion I was in to see myself thus curtailed and
disfigured. I should have been ashamed to have shown my head, had not all
my old acquaintance been reduced to the same shameful figure, excepting
some few that were punched through the belly. In the midst of this general
calamity, when everybody thought our misfortune irretrievable, and our
case desperate, we were thrown into the furnace together, and (as it often
happens with cities rising out of a fire) appeared with greater beauty and
lustre than we could ever boast of before. What has happened to me since
the change of sex which you now see, I shall take some other opportunity to
relate. In the meantime I shall only repeat two adventures, as being very
extraordinary, and neither of them having ever happened to me above once
in my life. The first was, my being in a poet's pocket, who was so taken
with the brightness and novelty of my appearance, that it gave occasion to
the finest burlesque poem in the British language, entitled from me, 'The
Splendid Shilling.'[184] The second adventure, which I must not omit,
happened to me in the year 1703, when I was given away in charity to a
blind man; but indeed this was by a mistake, the person who gave me
having heedlessly thrown me into the hat among a pennyworth of
farthings."

FOOTNOTES:
[181] Swift. This paper is mentioned twice in the "Journal to Stella," Nov. 30
and Dec. 14, 1710: "You are mistaken in all your conjectures about the Tatlers. I
have given him one or two hints, and you have heard me talk about 'The
Shilling.'" "No, the Tatler of 'The Shilling' was not mine, more than the hint, and
two or three general heads for it. I have much more important business on my
hands; and, besides, the ministry hate to think that I should help him, and have
made reproaches on it; and I frankly told them I would do it no more. This is a
secret, though, Madam Stella."
[182] Threw with a jerk. Cf. Spectator, No. 77, "I saw him squir away his watch
a considerable way into the Thames."
[183] The two shields on Cromwell's shilling; see No. 245.
[184] By John Philips (1676-1709), the author of "Cyder." The "Splendid
Shilling" was published in 1705, after two unauthorised versions had appeared.

Written in imitation of Milton, it describes, in mock-heroic strains, the miseries
of a debtor in want of a shilling to buy food, clothes, wine, or tobacco.

No. 250. [Addison.
From Saturday, Nov. 11, to Tuesday, Nov. 14, 1710.

Scis etenim justum gemina suspendere lance
Ancipitis libræ.——

Pers., Sat. iv. 10.

From my own Apartment, Nov. 13.

last winter erected a Court of Justice for the correcting of several
I enormities in dress and behaviour, which are not cognisable in any other
courts of this realm. The vintner's case[185] which I there tried is still
fresh in every man's memory. That of the petticoat[186] gave also a general
satisfaction, not to mention the more important points of the cane and
perspective;[187] in which, if I did not give judgments and decrees according
to the strictest rules of equity and justice, I can safely say, I acted according
to the best of my understanding. But as for the proceedings of that court, I
shall refer my reader to an account of them, written by my secretary, which
is now in the press, and will shortly be published under the title of
"Lillie's[188] Reports."
As I last year presided over a Court of Justice, it is my intention this year to
set myself at the head of a Court of Honour. There is no court of this nature
anywhere at present, except in France, where, according to the best of my
intelligence, it consists of such only as are marshals of that kingdom. I am
likewise informed, that there is not one of that honourable board at present
who has not been driven out of the field by the Duke of Marlborough; but
whether this be only an accidental or a necessary qualification, I must
confess I am not able to determine.
As for the Court of Honour of which I am here speaking, I intend to sit
myself in it as president, with several men of honour on my right hand, and